Students travel to Washington, D.C., meet Hilary Clinton

A handful of Western Washington University students traveled to Washington, D.C., last week in support of higher education, meeting with Rep. Rick Larsen, among others. And while they were there, they managed to bump into a rather high-profile member of President Barack Obama's cabinet.

Colin Watrin, the Associated Students president, explains:

"Iris Maute-Gibson, our legislative liaison, and myself had the opportunity to attend a few House committee hearings last Thursday the 10th. We had originally planned to attend a hearing on education budgets, but when we arrived we saw a hearing happening across the hall on the State Department budget. We decided to check this out as well.

Secretary Clinton was presenting at the hearing for about two hours. After the hearing, the two of us were able to say "hello" as she was on her way out. Unfortunately, she was running late and couldn’t stop to talk for very long, but both Iris and I were able to shake her hand and say "hello," and Iris asked her to autograph a copy of her testimony.

It was quite the experience to just listen to her testify, but getting to actually shake her hand was great. She was very friendly, and although she was running late she made a point to stop and shake hands with us and a few others at the hearing. We weren’t able to take any pictures, unfortunately, but the signed testimony is pretty cool."

 Also on the trip was Byron Starkey, the AS vice president for governmental affairs.