Obama visits

Thursdays are usually a busy day at the Columbia Market House. Usually the market’s slow time is around four o’clock in the afternoon.
That all changed last Thursday when a few police cars, a black van and two big buses pulled up to the historic market in the first block of South Third Street.
It wasn’t a raid conducted by police, or, a tour bus stopping to purchase some goods from the market.
It was Democratic Presidential Candidate Barack Obama and his entourage, which also featured Senator Bob Casey.
“We found out about 10 minutes before he got here,” said Mark Vera, a standholder at the market.
Vera and his mother, Market Manager Renae Sears, said Thursday they saw a few people inside the market, who looked “out of place,” but they didn’t think to question them.
“The Secret Service told us they had been looking at the building for about a week,” Vera said.
“We never knew he was coming. It was a well guarded secret,” Sears said.
Obama stopped at the Columbia Market traveling Route 30 going from a speaking engagement in York to one in Lancaster.
When the entourage pulled up to the market, about 50 people were inside the facility. Thanks to technology, or the use of cell phones and word of mouth, that number almost tripled. Vera said he had about 75 people in his traveling party.
“Cell phones were going crazy,” Vera said.

For more check out next week's Columbia Ledger.