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Donahue attracts 3 times the attendance

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By Deirdre Cox Baker | Friday, January 04, 2008 |

DONAHUE, Iowa — These rural Iowans came in pairs — almost all wearing boots and warm coats — and trudged through snow and ice to fill a gymnasium and a classroom in an elementary school in northwestern Scott County.

Organizers were thrilled to register three times as many Democratic caucus-goers as John Glenn Elementary has ever hosted before.

“I’ve been caucusing since 1972 and I’ve never, ever seen anything like it,” Donahue Mayor Ken Schoenthaler said. “This is just incredible.”

Joe Ragona, an Allen’s Grove Township official, said 35 of the approximately 100 Allen’s Grove and Liberty townships residents were either independent voters or came from the Republican ranks.

Mother-and-daughter duos were common. Eighteen-year-old Kayla Arp and her mother, Lisa, came out for the first time to caucus for U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y. “I’m taking an American government class at Scott (Community College) and I just decided I was going to caucus this year for sure,” Kayla Arp said.

Karen Kolwey and her daughter, Tana Kolwey, showed up to support U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill. “I had to drag her here kicking and screaming last time,” Karen Kolwey said of 2004.

“But this time I wanted to come,” Tana Kolwey, now 20, said. Obama attracted the pair with his message of hope, they said.

After spending several minutes to count off, arrange and rearrange themselves, the choices for the three precincts at the school finally settled at two for Clinton, two for Obama and one for former U.S. Sen. John Edwards, the Democrat from North Carolina.

Deirdre Cox Baker can be contacted at (563) 383-2492 or dbaker@qctimes.com.