Pittsburgh Area Sending Oldest And One Of The Youngest Delegates To Democratic National Convention
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- Monday is the start of the Democratic National Convention that will officially nominate Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
Over 200 Pennsylvania delegates will attend virtually from their homes. It turns out, the oldest and one of the youngest delegates come from this region.
Many journalists and delegates have been going to political conventions for decades, but that's nothing compared to Angie Gialloreto of Wilkins Township.
She is going to her 11th Democratic Convention as a delegate, while Christian Sesek of Brownsville, almost seven decades younger, will attend his first convention.
"For President Carter, and it was a memorable one," says Gialloreto.
That was her first convention when a Georgia peanut farmer won her party's nomination. She's been to every convention since 1976.
"It's just as exciting as my first one was," Gialloreto told KDKA political editor Jon Delano on Thursday.
She is the oldest delegate from Pennsylvania. How old is she?
"Ninety-one years old," she says.
"I graduated from Brownsville High School in 2014," Sesek says.
Sixty-seven years younger than Gialloreto, Sesek is a Duquesne University law student. At age 24, this will be his first convention, and, of course, he is disappointed delegates won't gather in Milwaukee.
"I was so looking forward to attending. I had acquired several different ties with donkeys on them. I have a political button collection that includes everyone from Al Smith to FDR to JFK. and I was going to be wearing just about every one of them," Sesek said.
But what's most important to both delegates is electing Biden. Sesek likes Biden's working-class roots.
"Joe Biden comes from a similar background as I do," he says.
Born in 1929, Gialloreto has lived through a lot. But she says America under Donald Trump is at its low point and needs Biden's sense of unity.
"A lot of faith, a lot of hope has been diminished, and we have to bring it back. This is a great country, and we can't let it go," she says.