Talk about first impressions.
Rolling Meadows High School sophomore Kate Foley obviously made one on Jill Biden when the first lady and several cabinet secretaries visited the northwest suburban high school last fall.
Kate was one of the guests in the first lady’s viewing box at the State of the Union Tuesday night in Washington, D.C., where President Joe Biden made the annual address to Congress. And not only was she asked to attend, she got the invite via a direct phone call from the first lady.
“I met her in November – once,” Kate said in a video interview Tuesday with Township High School District 214 spokeswoman Stephanie Kim that was shared with Pioneer Press. “So, for me to have that big impression on her … like, oh my God, she remembered me is kind of an unearthly feeling.”
The teen sat immediately to the the first lady’s right side in Biden’s special section in the U.S. House of Representatives chambers.
Kate and her mother, Dana, of Arlington Heights, had just hours before arrived in Washington – their first time in the nation’s capital, they said – when they both talked to Kim over the Zoom video conferencing platform.
“It’s all been so surreal,” said Dana Foley.
Kate said she had been looking forward to meeting people and being able to say, “‘yeah, I sat in on the State of the Union.'”
Tuesday was the second time in three months that the teen, who says she is looking forward to a career as a biomedical engineer, has been seated right next to the first lady. Biden visited RMHS Nov. 14 with an entourage of local and federal leaders, and Kate sat at the table with them.
They saw up close how a special “Career Pathways” curriculum helps tout programs aimed at creating more equitable pathways to high-paying jobs. Kate is enrolled in the engineering track.
Biden was also at the school – and in the Chicagoland area that day – to kick off National Apprenticeship Week.
Her visit here and Kate Foley’s invite to and attendance at the State of the Union spoke to President Joe Biden’s education agenda calling for kids to start in high school working toward financially sustaining careers, whether or not they get a college degree.
The president, in his remarks Tuesday, made a call to “connect students to career opportunities starting in high school, provide access to two years of community college — the best career training in America, in addition to being a pathway to a four-year degree. Let’s offer every American a path to a good career, whether they go to college or not.”
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Dana Foley said she was “really excited” about her daughter being asked to go to Washington as a personally invited guest of the first lady.
“I think what’s really cool is that she didn’t apply for this,” Dana Foley said about the opportunity extended to her teen. “They thought she is as great as I think she is.”