In the hierarchy of Congress, the high school students who serve as Congressional pages fall somewhere near the bottom, seemingly invisible as they scurry through the hallways of the Capitol ferrying messages to powerful lawmakers who often fail to give them a second glance.
In that rarefied world, Representative Mark Foley, the silver-haired Republican from Florida, stood out. He took pains to befriend the 16- and 17-year-old aides, several former pages said in interviews on Sunday. He chatted with them on the House floor, they said, sent handwritten notes and urged them to keep in touch when they left Washington for their hometowns.
Ashley Gallo, a 21-year-old former page who is now a senior at Western Michigan University, said on Sunday that many of her friends had viewed Mr. Foley as one of the few lawmakers who made a real effort to reach out to young people.“You didn’t have a lot of interaction with the members because most of them treated you like a kid, but he was pretty friendly,” said Ms. Gallo, who served as a page in 2001. “He would talk to people,” she said. “He would say, ‘Here’s my e-mail address if you want to keep in touch.’
Patrick McDonald, 21, a senior at Ohio State University, said he took Mr. Foley up on his invitation to keep in touch and sent him an e-mail message asking about internship opportunities two years after he completed his work as a page in 2002. He was one of the cool congressmen. He was willing to chill out with us.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/02/washington/02pages.html?_r=1&oref=slogin