Recordpub.com - Obama stops in Portage

By Dave O'Brien

Record-Courier staff writer

EDINBURG -- Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama took a taste of Portage County with him on the campaign trail when he made a brief stop Tuesday afternoon, buying peaches and apple fritters from Stahl's Farm Market on S.R. 14.

His campaign bus pulled into the gravel parking lot, five miles southeast of Ravenna, shortly after 1 p.m. and the Illinois senator entered the market. Flanked by U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown and Gov. Ted Strickland, Obama greeted employees behind the counter with handshakes and was told the peaches were a good choice.

"I might have to get two or three (baskets)," Obama said, looked over the selection. He also asked the press corps traveling with him if they wanted any peaches.

"Come on guys, last chance," he said when none answered. At that point, a few hands went up, Obama counted them out and ended up buying a quart for the media to take on the road.

"Gibbs, I know you don't believe in fruit," Obama said, addressing his communications director and senior adviser Robert Gibbs, while holding a bag of Stahl's apple fritters.

"You don't want apple fritters?" he asked. When Gibbs declined, Obama joked: "I think I'm going to buy them, just to tempt you."

Stahl's employee Katie Fassnacht said Obama bought a total of three quarts of Red Haven peaches, Stahl's own variety, at $3.99 a quart. He also bought the bag of apple fritters, paying cash out of his own pocket, she said.

During the visit, Brown bought Strickland a bag of peaches. Strickland then handed them off to Carol Weigand of Rootstown, who had hustled over to Stahl's when her friends Carol Shoop and Patty Eskridge called her and said "Barack Obama is at Stahl's right now!" she said.

Eskridge, of Charlestown, and Shoop, a Hudson resident, were horseback riding at West Branch State Park when they decided to stop for peaches at Stahl's, they said.

"There was all this scuttlebutt that Barack Obama might be here," Shoop said, "so we hung around." Secret Service agents and Obama's advance team soon materialized, prompting Shoop to note that "those people don't look like typical customers!"

Weigand, an art teacher at Southeast High School in Palmyra, proudly held up the bag of "Ted Strickland's peaches."

Greg Jolivette, who was at Stahl's with his family when Obama arrived, asked the candidate about his basketball playing.

"You got a game? What do you do?" Obama said in response. Jolivette said he was a lawyer.

Portage County Municipal Court Judge John Plough also stopped by to see Obama, shook the candidate's hand and chatted briefly with him. He said he'd received an e-mail Monday night saying Obama might be coming through the area on his way to a rally at Baldwin-Wallace College in Berea, southwest of Cleveland.

Plough said he told Obama he was a judge, and Obama asked him how long he had been on the bench. Plough also told Obama his son, Ben, had worked for the senator's campaign in the Democratic primary and would probably "proudly help him this fall."

Shoop, Eskridge and Weigand discussed the Bush administration's No Child Left Behind Act with Obama before the senator climbed back aboard his campaign bus.

"That's why we're going to change it but first I have to get elected. Spread the word," he said.

"Go get 'em," one of the women told him.

A teacher for 31 years, Weigand said she would "absolutely" vote for Obama in November because "this country needs a change." She said her daughter, Sarah, is working on the Obama campaign in Columbus.

"I admire his energy. I think he has good ideas ... And he's got a cute smile!" she added, laughing.

Obama is the second presidential candidate to pay a visit to Edinburg in less than four years. Democrat John Kerry stopped at the Tom Pfile farm on Tallmadge Road on Sept. 4, 2004 following a rally in Akron. He spent most of the hour-long visit skeet shooting.

President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney passed through Ravenna during the 2000 presidential campaign, shortly after they were nominated. A sizable crowd turned out to greet them at the CSX Railroad crossing on South Chestnut Street. Although the two candidates waved to the spectators the train did not stop, much to the disappointment of many in the crowd.

The last president to visit Portage County was Richard Nixon, who stopped in Aurora, Garrettsville and Windham during a campaign swing in October 1972.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.