While he is lied about and unappreciated here in the lower States, President Obama is getting the royal treatment in Alaska.
President Obama’s meet-and-greet with local educators in Kotzebue Middle High School started normally enough. But then Sandy Shroyer-Beaver, the regional school board president, explained to the president, “It’s our culture to welcome you with an Eskimo kiss, a practice in which two people rub noses.”
Obama assented, but Shroyer-Beaver — who is 5’4” told him, “You’ve got to come down here.” Obama obligingly bent his knees, she said in an interview, and the two rubbed noses.
“Wow, it was cool. Let’s do another,” Obama said, according to Shroyer-Beaver, and the two did a repeat.
Then Obama turned to Cheryl Eden Shaw, director of the Alaska Technical Center in Kotzebue, and gave her an Eskimo kiss as well.
“You should have seen the look on his staff,” Shroyer-Beaver said as she stood on Shore Avenue a couple of hours after the exchange, waiting for the presidential motorcade to leave town. “That alone was worth it.”
