Guess Who's Coming To School

By Jonathan Weisman

Depth charge blasts from the submarine movie U-571 were still echoing in Brian Templin's ears when the phone rang at his home around 10 o'clock one Sunday night last spring. Templin, principal of Holt Senior High School outside Lansing, Michigan, had been getting calls all weekend, but his kids had garbled the messages. "Some guys are trying to sell you something," they had told their dad. Now, a stranger was on the other end of the line, someone working for Al Gore's campaign: "How would you like a visit from the vice president?"

"I said, 'You bet,' " Templin recalled. "I didn't even hesitate."

With that, the principal all but surrendered his school to an invading army. At 7 the next morning, the vanguard of Gore's advance team arrived at the low-slung, tan-and-brick building. Secret Service agents followed in the afternoon and were soon clambering underneath the school, exploring the tunnel complex that houses its pipes. Campaign staff, meanwhile, set up shop in the school's main office and spent the week choreographing every moment of the vice president's seven-hour visit: Which classes should Gore visit? Which should he teach? Which students should join him for lunch? The vice president wanted to bed down the night before in a teacher's house....