Sisters Kim Owens and Laura Survant brought chairs they were willing to lose.
They were inexpensive folding chairs, something to sit in during the long wait outside the Lubbock Memorial Civic Center. When it was time to go inside to see President Donald Trump, they planned to leave them.
“We were just gonna dump the chairs,” Owens said.
They arrived about 8:30 a.m. Tuesday, Oct. 27. Neither had ever seen a sitting president in person. More than eight hours would pass before they saw him.
Local media reports estimated 15,000 people lined up around the Civic Center, with about 5,000 getting inside. The exhibit hall filled to capacity. Those estimates suggest roughly 10,000 people were unable to enter.
The sisters got seats four or five rows back, beside the stage, Owens estimated. But when she talked about the day afterward, she had almost as much to say about the people they met during the wait.
“Can I be your sister?”
Owens and Survant wore sparkly jackets, and Survant had a Trump hat. A woman stopped to take their picture.
“We looked extremely cute,” Owens said.
The woman came back later and called Survant over.
“Can I be your sister?” Owens recalled her asking. “Can we just stand in line with you?”
They let her. She ended up sitting with them inside.
“We met all the people around us, and we kind of had a community going,” Owens said.
One young father told her he had two children, a 5-year-old and a 5-month-old. Throughout the day, she watched him and his wife take turns caring for the baby.
They sat near the sisters at the rally, too. Owens asked the father where he worked.
The Cheesecake Factory, he told her.
Owens admired the young parents’ commitment to spending the day at the rally.
“It was just really a beautiful thing to see,” she said.
Owens has lived in Lubbock since 1972. When Trump finally walked out, she had goosebumps.
She remembered his fist pumping and the hats he tossed into the crowd. Seeing him in person, she said, reinforced her belief that he loves the country, although she sometimes gets tired of his name-calling.
She and Survant also found something to laugh about when Trump claimed retirement-account gains of 65% to 70%. Their investments hadn’t done that.
“I need to use his advisor,” Owens said.
U.S. Rep. Brandon Gill, one of the opening speakers who took the stage before Trump entered, impressed her, too. She knew little about him beforehand but liked his willingness to question people in congressional proceedings.
“He was fearless,” she said.
Trump talks cotton and Texas Tech
Trump praised farmers and ranchers and called Lubbock the cotton capital.
“I didn’t know that, the cotton capital of the world,” Trump said.
Survant and her husband have a cow-calf operation, Owens said.
Trump also praised Texas Tech.
“They know they’re in a fight when they’re fighting Texas Tech,” he said.
He credited Cody Campbell with helping on college sports’ name, image and likeness issues, praised Campbell’s son as an offensive lineman and recognized former Tech receiver Danny Amendola.
Owens liked that Trump knew to put his guns up.
“He did do the guns up,” she said. “That was a big deal.”
Campaigning for Paxton, recognizing Lubbock leaders
Trump came to Lubbock to campaign for Republican U.S. Senate candidate Ken Paxton, who faces Democrat James Talarico.
He called Paxton the “greatest attorney general in the history of Texas.”
“He deserves it,” Trump said.
He said he needed Paxton’s help in the Senate and urged turnout, arguing that Republican victories would protect his tax cuts and advance his agenda.
The opening lineup included U.S. Reps. Jodey Arrington and Brandon Gill; Tom Sell, the Republican nominee for Arrington’s 19th Congressional District seat; Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows; Don Huffines; Texas Tech Chancellor Brandon Creighton; and Campbell, chairman of Tech’s Board of Regents. Paxton also addressed the crowd.
Trump asked Arrington to stand and praised his speech. He recognized Burrows, state Sen. Charles Perry and Mayor Mark McBrayer.
Also recognized: Dan Patrick, Ronny Jackson, Gill, Sell, Mayes Middleton, Ted Cruz and John Barrasso, along with administration officials Marco Rubio, Howard Lutnick, Lee Zeldin, Steve Witkoff and Andrew Hughes. Rubio briefly spoke.
Back home, a familiar face
Back at home, Kim’s husband, Danny, watched the event on television.
Asked his favorite part, Danny recalled “when the elderly gentleman gave his speech,” referring to a Fox News interview outside the Civic Center about the veteran’s military service. Kim recognized him as the man she had met in line that morning.
“That was in the parking lot. … That was the interview on … Fox News,” Kim said.
Owens had no regrets about spending the day there with Laura.
“I’m thrilled that we went,” she said.
