GOP CONVENTION: DONIPHAN WOMAN ATTENDS 12TH EVENT

Republican conventions are nothing new for Dorothy Burford.

At 96, the Doniphan, Mo., woman is attending her 12th national convention. She has attended all but one of the party's conventions since 1952.

She was wheeled onto the floor Monday for opening day of the 2000 Republican convention in Philadelphia. She is an alternate at the convention.

Burford is touted as the oldest participant, said delegate Matthew Henson of Poplar Bluff. U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina was expected to hold that honor but was unable to attend, Henson said.

Burford figures this will be her last convention. "I don't think I can make it to the next one," Burford said from her seat in the first row of the Show-Me-State's section. "The Lord has been good to me, and he gave me perfect sight for more than 90 years," she said.

Now her eyesight is failing. But that hasn't stopped her from enjoying the convention.

Still, she said, this convention can't top her first convention 48 years ago. She attended the convention in Chicago, Ill., with her sister.

"I was neither a delegate nor an alternate," she recalled in a 1996 interview with her hometown newspaper.

"We didn't know what we were supposed to do or not to do, and we just barged right in and attended the entire session of the convention."

Burford recalled the 1952 GOP convention battle between Dwight Eisenhower and Robert Taft.

"Everyone thought Taft was a sure nominee, but then Eisenhower came home from the war in glory and made such a wonderful figure," she said.

"It was nip and tuck to the end, and we didn't know who would get it until the last vote was cast," she told The Prospect-News in Doniphan.

The latest convention has none of that suspense. But she said it is the biggest one she has attended. "I think there is more life and enthusiasm," she said of the Philadelphia convention.

Convention notes

Convention delegates Donna Lichtenegger of Jackson and state Sen. Peter Kinder of Cape Girardeau are well aware that the Republican gathering this week is a media event. They said the television lights make the convention center hot.

"It is actually cooler up top in the shade out of the glare of the TV lights," said Kinder.

"It is extremely crowded down on the floor," he said Tuesday. "There is a non-stop flow of people. It gets a little tiresome," he said.

Lichtenegger said the Missouri delegation is seated next to the aisle where journalists enter and exit.

"You see a lot of people that you see on TV every day," she said.

There are 4,132 delegates and alternates at the convention. They are far outnumbered by the media, estimated to have 15,000 people covering the convention.

Some information for this story was provided by The Associated Press.