60,000 Volunteer for Inauguration; Most Won't Make Cut

Applications can be found and filed on the Presidential Inaugural Committee's Web site, http://www.pic2009.org.

One early volunteer is Gail Wise, who said she was in high school the last time she was so excited about a presidential inauguration. It was 1961. Her work stuffing envelopes for John F. Kennedy earned her a ticket to his swearing-in. But when the day came, she had a biology exam, and her parents told her that she could attend Kennedy's next inauguration.

She recalled listening to the ceremonies on a transistor radio while dissecting a frog.

But there would be no second inauguration for Kennedy, who was assassinated in 1963. "So, of course, I never ever got there," she said.

Now 63, retired with children and grandchildren, Wise said yesterday that this time, "I am bound and determined to be there."

Wise, of Leesburg, who worked in Loudoun County for Obama during the campaign, already is at work helping the Presidential Inaugural Committee match other volunteers with jobs.

Wise, who said she has no title, said she and others worked for Obama during the primaries and the general election and are working for him again "because something was ignited and we can't settle down and go back to our lives."

Staff researcher Madonna Lebling contributed to this report.