Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 10, 1993 TAG: 9301080186
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: RICK LINDQUIST CORRESPONDENT
DATELINE: RADFORD LENGTH: Medium
A BAD, MAD WANGLER
You could call it the "Sheer Madness" tour when 92 Radford High students and their chaperones board buses for Washington to attend Bill Clinton's inauguration.Even the guy who's putting it all together conceded he might be a tad crazy.
Radford High School social studies teacher Mike Greco also might be in the wrong line of work. He could be the Crazy Eddie of bargain tour packages.
After all, this three-day whirlwind trip that includes the inauguration Jan. 20, visits to major attractions, a Potomac River boat cruise and a Kennedy Center performance of the comedy "Sheer Madness," will cost each traveler just over $200.
Nutty or not, the fast-talking Greco managed to con School Board member Carter Effler into driving one of the buses. A doctor, an emergency medical technician and the entire social studies department are among the chaperones.
But wait; there's more.
Greco so successfully sweet-talked the Potomac River cruise boat people into opening during inaugural week that they bought him lunch at a fancy restaurant when he was in town. They wanted to thank him for the new business he'd persuaded them to take on.
Greco's head might be spinning with all the arrangements, but his heart still works.
Under Plan A, the tour was limited to 75. But more wanted in.
"I didn't have the heart to tell 76 through 92 they couldn't go," he said.
He also has wangled special cash "scholarships" and work programs for several students who found themselves short of cash.
To accommodate the additional bodies, he finagled another bus from a local church ("God bless the Methodists!") That association might have helped him pull off another minor miracle - pinning down parking for the three buses near the youth hostel where the students will stay.
OK; there's gotta be a rub, you say.
Well, there is the small matter of inauguration tickets.
"I'm confident we're going to have the tickets," he told the board after conceding he didn't have any just yet.
But members of Congress get tickets. Lots of them. Virginia's Sen. Chuck Robb has promised five or six.
But that's still 86 or 87 shy.
So Greco's students have written more than 200 letters to out-of-state relatives asking them to request tickets from their representatives and senators.
Greco thinks he'll get all he needs and then some.
"If things work out, I could be selling these things next week," he joked.
During a similar student trip four years ago, Greco said, he donned a red, white and blue star-bedecked sweater and cajoled extra passes from the inauguration crowd.
He hopes to avoid that this time around, but he said he'll take the sweater along just in case.
The group also will take a trip to a major suburban shopping mall.
"This mall is actually going to be interesting and educational," Greco said. "I know that sounds crazy."
But he said it has a museum store and a nature store, plus an all-important teen requirement: fast food.
Students also will visit the White House, the FBI and the Pentagon, where they plan to meet the U.S. Secretary of Defense.
School Board member Chip Craig was especially impressed with Greco's presentation this week.
"I don't think the invasion of Kuwait was this well planned," he said.
One thing the students will not do is ride the subway.
"I'm not about to take 92 students on the subway," Greco said. "I'm crazy, but I'm not that crazy."