President and Michelle Obama’s official guest list for the 2013 State of the Union address offers a good taste of the themes the president will touch on during Tuesday night’s speech before a joint session of Congress.
The White House has officially told a range of news outlets that the guests invited to sit with the first lady will be “Americans from middle class families whose day-to-day lives would benefit from the policy proposals the President will unveil, victims of gun violence, military families, people championing the cause of immigration reform, among others.”
The Daily Caller has combed national and local news reports to pull together a complete list of the known guests reportedly invited by the White House this year:
- The parents of murdered Chicago teen, Hadiya Pendleton, who was killed with a handgun days after attending Obama’s inauguration
- Desiline Victor, a 102-year-old Haitian-American woman who waited in a long line to vote in Florida
- Apple CEO and Obama donor Tim Cook
- Louisville machinist Bradley Henning
- Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber
- Newly-minted Medal of Honor recipient and former Staff Sergeant Clint Romesha (UPDATE: Was invited, but declined)
- Wisconsin police officer Lt. Brian Murphy, who was wounded by gunshots in the Sikh temple shooting last August
- Lee Maxwell, a 22-year-old wind energy technician from Wilton, Iowa
- Bobak “Mohawk Guy” Ferdowsi, an Iranian-American flight director from NASA representing high-skill immigrants
- Las Vegas student and illegal immigrant Alan Aleman, who has benefited from Obama’s “deferred action” program
- New Glarus Brewing Company founder and regular Obama small business example Deb Carey
- Dr. Peter Hudson, co-founder and CEO of iTriage, an iPhone app that helps locate doctors
- Susan Bumgarner, a pre-kindergarten teacher in Oklahoma City
- Two lesbian couples “fighting for immigration equality and extended rights for same-sex military couples”
- Menchu DeLuna Sanchez, Filipino immigrant and nurse credited with heroism during Superstorm Sandy
UPDATE: The White House has released a complete list of the invitees. Those not included above are listed below:
- Dr. Jill Biden
- Valerie Jarrett, Senior Advisor to the President
- Sergeant Sheena Adams, a female Marine from Vista, California
- Jack Andraka, the 16-year-old winner of the 2012 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair for inventing a low-cost method to detect pancreatic cancer
- Sergeant Carlos Evans, a Marine severely wounded in Afghanistan
- Avondale, Arizona Mayor Marie Lopez Rogers, the city’s first Latina mayor
- Amanda E. McMillan, “pay discrimination victim” from Jackson, Mississippi
- Lisa Richards, a single mother who used the president’s #My2K hashtag on Twitter
- Kaitlin Roig, 1st Grade Teacher, Sandy Hook Elementary School
- Abby Schanfield, a college graduate depending on Obamacare for health coverage
- Haile Thomas, a 12-year-old Tucson, Arizona girl and a “champion” of the first lady’s Let’s Move! program