Washington ? Capitol Hill staffers witnessed an unusual scene involving some Kansans on Thursday afternoon outside new U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office.

Fifty-five people sang two rounds of “Home on the Range.” The group was there to get a photo with newly sworn-in U.S. Rep. Nancy Boyda, D-Topeka, whose district includes western Lawrence, and Pelosi, the first female speaker in U.S. history.

The large gathering included members of Boyda’s family, staff, friends and campaign supporters, who in November helped her upset five-term U.S. Rep. Jim Ryun, R-Lawrence, two years after he handily defeated her.

“Where are you all from?” a Capitol policeman asked while the group waited in line.

“Kansas,” one replied.

“Is this the whole district?” the policeman quipped.

Staffers and media members remarked at the size of the group in the ceremonial swearing-in ceremony with Pelosi, while most other House members who did the same had only a few people accompany them.

“I think everyone was surprised that that many people showed up from Kansas, and it was grass roots. It didn’t look like necessarily a bunch of dark suits. It was a really good cross-section of Kansans,” Boyda said.

She took the official oath of office just after 2:30 p.m. Thursday, along with the rest of the Kansas House delegation: Dennis Moore, D-Lenexa, whose district includes eastern Lawrence; Jerry Moran, R-Hays, and Todd Tiahrt, R-Wichita.

ABC’s World News Tonight with Charles Gibson also aired an excerpt of an interview Thursday night that included Boyda and two other Democratic freshman House members talking about Iraq and how the new Congress may respond to further President Bush requests or recommendations, including a possible troop increase.

Riding grass roots to Congress

The energy and intrigue followed Boyda during her first two full days in Washington.

Several longtime Democratic House members and Democratic National Committee members in the last two days expressed their enthusiasm and congratulated Boyda during two-minute conversations.

Boyda and her husband, Steve, an attorney who works out of Manhattan, ran a grass-roots campaign mostly without outside help in a district many Democrats did not expect to win months ahead of time.

Several successful House candidates “had to be creative and got close to the people by other means, and that’s what Nan did,” Steve Boyda said. Pelosi credited many freshmen lawmakers, including Boyda, for running those campaigns.

Before the House came to order Thursday afternoon for the swearing-in session, Pelosi grabbed Boyda and Boyda’s stepgranddaughter, Paige, 11, Wamego, on the floor. Pelosi congratulated her again on being elected and told Paige to “always remember you can do whatever you want.”

“(House leaders) know that there’s something different, and it took guts to go ahead and do something different,” Boyda said. “But I think everybody’s aware that the voters were in a pretty different decision and we did take advantage of that.”

Future challenges

Boyda is a Democrat elected in a heavily Republican district, and she knows the next two years still will be about campaigning and working hard to keep her job, which is her first political office.

“It is what she’s about and who she is. She is tenacious. She’s smart,” said Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., who began her ninth term in the House on Thursday. “She’s taking the job on in the right way (by) including her constituency, the core of what she is about here,”

Boyda opened her office all day Thursday to supporters and visitors.

Other Kansas politicians stopped by, including Moore and Republican U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts, who gave Boyda a “bless your heart” and congratulated her for being appointed to the House Armed Services Committee.

“When you have a new member of Congress, you have a responsibility to come over and pay your respect to that person and to offer to work with the new member,” said Roberts, a Republican.

Former Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman, a Kansan who served 18 years as a Democrat in the House, said Boyda “defied the odds” during her campaign.

“The qualities that she used to win the race, the tenaciousness, the energy, I think will be helpful to her as she serves her district,” Glickman said.

Boyda’s father, Sam Palmer, 85, of O’Fallon, Mo., said he never expected his daughter to run for political office. He also said he had an idea about what would lead to her success.

“She won’t like my answer, but that she grew up as a nice, conservative Republican girl, and I think she still has many of those qualities,” he said. “She has – to me at least – the common touch. She’s people-oriented.”

Boyda switched parties in 2003. She has adamantly opposed the Iraq war, which got her political juices flowing, friends and colleagues said.

The congresswoman has said she will return to Kansas frequently to visit constituents in her district, which also includes most of southeast Kansas, Topeka, Manhattan and Leavenworth.

“I think after basically running for three and a half years, I’m just glad to be voting and accomplishing something,” Boyda said.