Indiana student on solo tour of presidential libraries

IOWA CITY - Many college students spend the summer working or lying in the sun.

Tyler Knierim, a University of Indianapolis political science major from Terre Haute, Ind. is on a solo road trip around the country visiting U.S. presidential libraries.

Texas was the first stop, where he hit the libraries of George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush and Lyndon B. Johnson. From there, he drove to the Harry S. Truman Library and Museum in Independence, Mo.

Then Knierim headed north to see the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum in West Branch.

'Politics are my passion,” said Knierim, 19, as he waited last week to meet GOP presidential candidate Mike Huckabee at the Hamburg Inn in Iowa City.

Seeing Republican presidential candidates on the road is a bonus, Knierim said. He saw Ben Carson, a retired neurosurgeon and Michigan native, in Washington, Iowa, last week and got a photo with Huckabee at the Hamburg.

'He has Christian values I think would shine forth,” Knierim said of Huckabee, a former Arkansas governor and Baptist minister. 'That's really what we need in America.”

Knierim decided to embark on the trip after his grandfather, with whom he lived, died in February. After visiting the College Station, Texas, library of the elder President Bush, Knierim learned there's a 'passport” for people who want to visit all 13 presidential libraries - a keepsake booklet visitors can take with them as they tour the facilities.

'I was told when I got the passport that if you complete it, they give you a special gift,” he said. 'I'm dying to know what it is.”

Knierim, who's not on a tight schedule, may not be able to visit all the libraries by the end of the summer. He has plans to next hit the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library in Abilene, Kan. He just needs to be back in Indy when classes start Aug. 31.