At age 93, Ruby Gilliam is getting her star turn.
She’ll lead the crowd in saying the Pledge of Allegiance at the Democratic National Convention, which begins Monday in Philadelphia.
She’s the oldest of the more than 4,000 delegates, and this is the eighth consecutive convention the area woman has attended.
Gilliam acknowledged that despite leading the pledge numerous times over the years she is a bit nervous.
“I have done it a lot before for state [Democratic] party dinners and things like that,” she said. “But that was nothing compared to this.”
She noted that she’ll get some help from a 17-year-old delegate from another state — the youngest delegate — who will join her in leading the pledge.
Gilliam, who lives just outside Minerva, is one of 160 Ohio delegates at the convention at Wells Fargo Center. She’s an at-large delegate, pledged to Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee.
Clinton’s primary opponent Sen. Bernie Sanders endorsed Clinton earlier this month, hoping to unify the party. But he has not officially dropped out of the race. Local Sanders delegates last week still didn’t know whether they would be voting for Sanders on the first ballot or whether they’ll be released to vote for Clinton.
Ralph Streza, 60, a lawyer from Akron attending his first convention, is among local delegates pledged to Sanders. Streza said he will do everything he can to support Clinton, once Sanders officially exits the race.
“I’m a Browns fan,” Streza said. “But if the Steelers go to the Super Bowl … I’m definitely rooting for the Steelers. They’re from our division. I want somebody from my camp to win the Super Bowl.”
Gilliam backed Clinton in 2008, when Clinton was then-candidate Barack Obama’s Democratic primary rival. That year at the convention, Gilliam wore a big red hat that featured pictures of Clinton and Obama and said “History Made in 2008.”
This year, Gilliam is especially looking forward to Thursday, when Clinton will speak.
“She’s going to be the next president,” Gilliam said assuredly.
“I thought that maybe someday a woman would be president,” she said. “But I didn’t know if I would live to see it or not.”
Gilliam won’t be hard to spot among the Ohio delegation. She’s known for sporting flamboyant hats, including one topped with a stuffed donkey toy and another festooned with state symbols, including a buckeye.
First-time delegate
Streza, the Akron man backing Sanders, said last week he planned to pack a couple of his Bernie Sanders T-shirts.
He was among those who wanted Sen. Elizabeth Warren to run, and when she didn’t he decided to back Sanders, helping to gather signatures last year to get the Vermont senator’s name on the Ohio ballot.
“He was saying a lot of the things Sen. Warren was saying,” said Streza, who is married to Summit County Common Pleas Judge Mary Margaret Rowlands.
As a delegate, Streza is among those representing the 11th Congressional District.
He remains excited about politics, even though his candidate won’t get the nomination. “If nothing else, Sen. Sanders has stimulated a lot of interest … about some very serious issues … and some of the changes he’s promoting and representing may become real,” Streza said.
Attending her second convention is Isabel Framer, who lives in Copley Township and is a Clinton supporter. Framer, born in Ecuador and raised in California, is a judiciary interpreter who specializes in offering training to other interpreters as well as lawyers and judges.
Framer’s first involvement with a presidential campaign was in 2008, when she volunteered with Obama’s campaign.
That year and in 2012, when she attended her first convention, she was heavily involved with voter outreach programs involving the Hispanic/Latino community.
This year, Framer is a Democratic National Committee member and is one of roughly 700 superdelegates — party leaders and others involved in the party who are not elected and are not bound to support candidates based on primary and caucus results.
“It’s like making history,” she said of being at a convention where the first woman will be nominated to head a major party.
“I feel like we’ve made such wonderful progress in our culture,” she said. “First we had the first black president, and now I’m extremely excited about the first female president.”
Katie Byard can be reached at 330-996-3781 or kbyard@thebeaconjournal.com. You can follow her @KatieByardABJ on Twitter or on Facebook at www.facebook.com.