Presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama greets students at the Little 500 Women’s race on Friday at Bill Armstrong Stadium. Obama spoke at Columbus eariler in the day and planned to visit Terre Haute later in the evening.
Jacob Kriese • IDS
For an hour Friday afternoon, every student on Kirkwood Avenue stopped drinking. In the heat of Little 500 festivities, on a gorgeous sunny day, students left Kilroy’s, emptied the Upstairs Pub and poured out onto the sidewalks and into the street, all looking for one man: the celebrity Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama. He came after all.
The Illinois senator crashed the Little 500 women’s race with a surprise appearance on campus and then traveled in his motorcade to Nick’s English Hut where he shook hands with all of the patrons inside.
His visit came with little advance warning. The campaign did not officially announce the stop until the senator’s motorcade began pulling into the driveway of Bill Armstrong Stadium.
Obama was greeted at both places by throngs of screaming and cheering students who crowded in, trying to catch at least a glimpse of the political phenom. The lucky ones got a handshake, a smile or a nod from the senator.
Sophomore Coco Goldenberg got one better. When she held out her pink Alpha Chi Omega trucker hat and asked Obama to sign it, he took out a pen and scribbled his signature across the brim.
Goldenberg, breathlessly excited, posed for photos with her friends, proudly sporting the hat.
“I’m a big, big Obama supporter. He’s so tight,” she said.
When the presidential contender showed up and walked around the circumference of the track at Bill Armstrong Stadium, he shook hands with riders and screaming IU students.
Obama then took a position off the field, surrounded by police officers and his Secret Service detail, and watched the start of the race.

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