Landing Obama Last Minute Has Wesleyan Scurrying

College glad Kennedy found graduation pinch-hitter, but logistics are tougher
By Nick McMaster,  Newser Staff
Posted May 23, 2008 2:55 PM CDT
Landing Obama Last Minute Has Wesleyan Scurrying
Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., speaks during a rally in Hartford, Conn., Monday, Feb. 4, 2008.   (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

Wesleyan University is happy that ailing Ted Kennedy found someone to take his place as commencement speaker Sunday, the Hartford Courant reports—though the fact that it's Barack Obama has created some logistical issues on the small Connecticut campus. "It'll be pretty crazy," an administrator says of the event, usually open to the public but rarely bringing the kind of crowds the Democratic front-runner tends to draw.

While school officials have simulcast graduation festivities online and larger campus venues before, dealing with Obama's Secret Service detail is a new wrinkle. "We want to do what we can to ensure our graduates and families are given every opportunity to experience commencement and reunion festivities here the way they have in the past," a Wesleyan spokesman said. (More Obama 2008 stories.)

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