Special 102 year-old guest to accompany First Lady to Union address


Tonight, February 12, 2013, US president Barack Obama will be presenting his State of the Union address to the United States, outlining his goals and the challenges he sees as pressing issues for his administration.

At the Capitol Rotunda, where Obama will be speaking, guests will include senators and members of congress, staffers and members of the media, as well as members of the first family.

But tonight, according to the Associated Press news wire, one unusual guest will be joining the special event: a 102 year-old Florida woman named Desiline Victor.

Victor, a resident of Miami, was born in Haiti in 1910, moved to the United States in 1989, and became a naturalized American citizen in 2005.

She voted in her first election three years later, and was invited from Florida to accompany First Lady Michelle Obama in the audience as a symbol of tenacity and determination.

“She just wants everyone to know she wants everyone to vote,” Victor’s nephew, Mathieu-Pierre Louis, told the Associated Press, translating from her native Creole language.

During the most recent presidential election last fall, Victor waited for more than three hours before casting her vote. There are an estimated 4,000 centenarians in the Sunshine State, with many of them living in Florida assisted living communities.