Michael A. Rulli: “I thank the Ohio delegation and the Speaker for the kind words, and I will give a shout-out to my daughter, Hayden…”

“I thank the Ohio delegation and the Speaker for the kind words, and I will give a shout-out to my daughter, Hayden Elizabeth, who is too sick to come tonight, and I know she is watching on C-SPAN. I love you, sweetheart. Mr. Speaker, in the spring of 1983, I was in Poland Middle School and Mrs. Hallobonich and Mr. Myers brought us for our yearly trip. It was always the fifth grade, I think, that came to Washington. We sat right there in the corner and the Chamber was quiet. It was moonlit. It was twilight. It felt really magical. The usher brought us in, and this is 1983, maybe a kinder time in America, but the usher said take your time. You have 10 or 15 minutes and then we will move on with the tour. We were going to the Lincoln Memorial, which is probably my favorite place in Washington. We are up there and there are 230 of us. We were being out of control a little bit, so the teachers said let's really soak this in and be quiet. Then out of nowhere, this girl says to Mrs. Hallobonich: What makes this Chamber so special? Her response was so magical that it brings me here today to join your group. She said, in the history of man, that the world has been ruled by kings and tyrants and dictators and just pure evil people, and only once in the history of man has anything good ever tried to govern the people and that was in Greece many, many moons ago. {time} 1915 Then we had the experiment of the United States of America.…”