WASHINGTON — Students from Bonny Eagle High School in Standish were among the crowds packed along the National Mall during Barack Obama's inauguration on Tuesday.

For some, including members of the Eagle Times school newspaper, it was a once-in-a-lifetime chance to be a part of, and to document, history.

The students posted stories, photos and other items on a blog created especially for the inauguration.

Senior Shannon Jacobson, 17, said that even with the mob scene, it was memorable.

"It was just thrilling, to get there, to be in the heat of the moment. We were running to get to our spot and squirm through to get where we wanted to be," she said.

On Wednesday the students took time to see the sights around Washington, stopping in the offices of Maine's congressional delegation and touring the Newseum, where newspapers from around the world displayed headlines on the beginning of the Obama presidency.

Joanne Lannin, a Bonny Eagle teacher who is the newspaper's adviser, said it was important for the students, while gaining real-life reporting experience, to get a sense of journalism's past.

Junior Bobby Michaud, graphics and design editor for the paper, has been busy all week producing photo slide shows and short videos for the blog.

Michaud said the Newseum allowed him to see journalism as part of a continuum.

"It's interesting to see how all the different ways of journalism work, and how everyone has a way of getting news to people and how it's important to make a society civil," said Michaud, who is 16.

Staff Writer Justin Ellis can be contacted at 791-6380 or at:

jellis@pressherald.com