Obama Pool Report from Ohio Farm Stand

Pool Report 3-Marengo, Ohio, roadside sweet corn stand
No real news here, though we learned how many high-level elected officials it takes to work a cell-phone camera (Answer: two. Read on for their identities). There was also a touching moment with a young mixed-race woman Sen. Obama encountered.
The purpose of the stop was to buy sweet corn from a roadside stand at a crossroads in Marengo, Ohio, operated by volunteers for the Marengo United Methodist Church. It was operated by volunteers for the church including Jack Fishburn, 75, and Karen Fishburn, 73, whose farm is where the corn is grown. Also working there was Sharon Hildebrand, 52, who says she is no relation to Obama deputy campaign manager Steve Hildebrand. Hildebrand said the church used proceeds gathered over the past five years to build the church's family life center.
There were only 2 plastic shopping bags each containing a dozen ears of sweet corn left in the panel truck the corn was sold from when the motorcade pulled into a small gravel lot across the street. Sen. Obama walked up to chat with the volunteers and buy corn accompanied by Sen. Biden, former Sen. John Glenn (D-Ohio), Gov. Ted Strickland (D-Ohio) and Sen Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio).
As Obama reached into his pocket for the cash to buy the remaining two bags of corn (at $4 each, an $8 purchase), Biden beat him to the punch and pressed a $20 bill in Hildebrand's hand. "I'm loaded, I'm loaded," Biden said, insisting she keep the change. Not to be left out, Brown handed her a $10 bill for the corn and Obama a $20 bill, each also insisting she keep the change.
This led Hildebrand to lament the fact that she was out of produce: "I have some tomatoes on my porch I could sell you," she joked. (Interviewed afterward, she said the church would be grateful for the money. "We very much appreciate it, she said.)
Afterward, as onlookers began to ask for the inevitable snapshots with the candidates, Sen. Brown tried to take a picture for one bystander with her cell phone camera, after she handed it to him and instructed him on which button to push. He struggled with it a few moments, apparently unable to generate an image on the screen. Luckily, Gov. Strickland was on hand to diagnose the problem, telling Brown to take his finger off the camera lens.
As Obama was mixing with the crowd, Shelley Fort, 19, a sophomore in dance and drama at Kenyon College in Ohio, gushed several times over his speech to the convention in Denver. "It was beautiful, it was beautiful," she said.
When it came time for her to have a moment with the senator she began tearing up as soon as she started speaking to the senator, telling him he had been an "inspiration" to her and that she had grown up mixed-race child of a black father and a white mother who died when she was in 7th grade.
"It's been tough. It's been tough figuring out where I fit in," Fort said, overcome by emotion and starting to choke back tears. Obama reached over to her and hugged her with one arm, drawing her against his side. It was a scene that many of the photographers captured.
Speaking briefly to your pooler afterward, Fort, who grew up in Kearney, Neb., said, "Sen. Obama has been such an inspiration for me."