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Gates woman among thousands attending Trump inauguration

When an estimated hundreds of thousands of people pack the National Mall in Washington Friday morning, a Gates woman will be among them.

This will be Roberta Favitta's first presidential inauguration, and she admits to being a bit nervous about the large crowds.

"You'll never know what to expect with things that have happened in Paris and all over the world, and Isis, and all that stuff,” she said. “I heard three quarters of a million people will be there, so yeah, it's a little bit frightening."

Favitta, who works as a sales manager for a technology company, will be driving to Washington on Thursday with her husband and several friends. They’ll be staying with another friend who works at the Pentagon. 

Favitta said she voted for Donald Trump and is well aware that she will likely see protesters who aren’t happy that he will be the next president.

"I think that this country needs to become more unified and I think it's a shame that people aren't seeing that,” she said. “He won the election and I think we all need to respect the office of the Presidency and give him a chance."

More than 40 House Democrats plan to boycott the inauguration. One of the first to publicly announce his intentions to not attend the event was Representative John Lewis of Georgia, who said he questions the legitimacy of Donald Trump’s presidency.  Rochester area Congresswoman Louise Slaughter said she will be in Washington on Friday, but has not yet decided whether she is attending the inauguration.

Trump and other Republicans have dismissed the boycott and complaints, saying Democrats are sore losers who need to accept the results of the election and move on. 

Beth Adams joined WXXI as host of Morning Edition in 2012 after a more than two-decade radio career. She was the longtime host of the WHAM Morning News in Rochester. Her career also took her from radio stations in Elmira, New York, to Miami, Florida.