BY ELENI HIMARAS
reporter@ltview.com
Judy Chavis went to school, married, had her children, worked and paid taxes in America for the better part of her adult life. But the native Jamaican didn’t feel the need to go through the arduous process of attaining citizenship.

 Not until she saw Barack Obama speak, that is.
“When you hear him speak it really does come off as genuine and honest,” Chavis said. It was a trait she hadn’t before seen in a politician.
“And not just the way he speaks but the content of what he has to say. I like the fact that he was a community organizer. He got people involved when you heard him speak it made you want to get involved,” she said.
She saw him speak at the Backyard in October 2007 and even got to the chance to shake his hand after the rally. Chavis campaigned hard for Obama and got involved in local charities – heeding his call for personal responsibility and action. Early the next year, she began the process of becoming a U.S. citizen.
“You are asked to renounce your other country. It’s very intrusive; they dig into your history, your past,” she said. “The U.S. wants people that are going to get involved in the country.”
As part of her volunteer work at the Heart House, she did a presentation to students on what was involved in the citizenship process.
“You really are giving up all affiliation with your other country and agreeing to take on arms for America,” she said.
And after months of paperwork and studying, she did just that in September – leaving her time to register for the 2008 election.
Her oldest son, Adam, had turned 18 just two months earlier. The first weekend early voting was available, Chavis picked her son up from his dorm at Texas A&M and they drove to the Lakeway Randall’s to cast their first ballots together.
“It was absolutely wonderful,” she said. “After all the news about poorly marked ballots I was double checking and triple checking – I think I took longer than I needed to.”
Those were two of the 66,882,230 votes that elected Barack Obama president on Nov. 4.
“I felt like I was now finally a citizen, versus being on the outside looking in,” she said.
The night he won, she and her husband, Randy, booked their flights for D.C.
“Being so involved, I felt I had to be there whether or not I got a ticket,” she said.
She wrote Llyod Doggett, Kay Bailey Hutchinson and John Cornyn, pleading for inauguration tickets. After rejection responses came from the first two and no response came from the third, she approached a friend who was an attorney for the Democrat Party.
“He was able to call Lloyd Doggett,” she said.
Chavis and her husband got the chance to meet up with Doggett at the inauguration to thank him for the tickets.
Despite a temperature in the teens and having to maneuver threw a crowd of 1.8 million, Chavis has only fond memories of the inauguration. She was able to avoid the inflated prices of hotel rooms by staying with a friend in Waldorf, Md., a twenty-minute ride on the sardine-like subway from the lawn.
“You did the penguin shuffle as you were walking, but everyone was helpful and friendly. When people were getting anxious, everyone would start to sing. If someone lost someone in their group, everyone would help find them,” she said.
She was one of the lucky few to secure a ticket and actually get close enough to see Obama speak.
You just felt like you were part of history and it was just amazing to watch him give his speech. Whenever you had a glimpse of him, the crowd just went nuts,” she said.
The inauguration day rush was not a fleeting feeling for Chavis, who said she is still extremely involved.
In addition to keeping abreast of current events, she will also soon begin volunteering at the Austin Boys and Girls Club.
“It’s not just that he won,” she said of her involvement. “I still want to help.”