St. Michael's Tyler Westerlund is in for the experience of a lifetime this January as he travels with the People to People organization to Washington DC for the presidential inauguration.

His 5th grade Social Studies teacher at St. Michael Middle School East recommended Tyler for the program last year. "When this year’s conference was scheduled to be held during the Presidential inauguration, I knew Tyler would be a great person to nominate because he will be able to gain a lot of knowledge on a subject that is already of interest to him," Mr. Jeremy Digiovanni wrote in an email this week.

"Over the 15 years that I have been teaching here, he ranks as one of the very top students I have had the privilege of working with and getting to know.  Not only is he a top student in the classroom, Tyler has a very mature understanding of some pretty complex topics that many adults have a difficult time making sense out of.  He was especially interested in our government unit and learning about the three branches the government is divided into," Digiovanni continued.

Tyler, an honor roll student who has also been recognized as a student of the month considers math, language arts, science and social studies his favorite subjects.

"I do like history and government a lot," he said.

He also enjoys LEGOs, videogames, diving  and watching the Discovery Channel. He recently became a certified diver with his dad.

The trip to DC takes place in January and is six days long and will combine site-seeing with leadership activities. Close to 30 students from across the country will travel to DC and stay together with teachers from across the country chaperoning. The highlight of the trip will be attending the presidential inauguration and a special People to People Inaugural ball.

"I'm excited even though I might be homesick," Tyler said earlier this week. His dad Joe will travel with him but stay seperately.

"I think it's a great experience and great for him to interact with others who are interested in history like he is," his mom Erin said.

Tyler plans on taking lots of pictures and reporting back to Patch after his DC experience.