Just as the country’s political focus was on the Democratic National Convention last week in Denver, it is now turned to the Republican National Convention, which kicked off Monday at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul.

The convention was supposed to start off in grand fashion, with speeches by Vice President Dick Cheney, President George W. Bush, Sen. Joe Lieberman, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and First Lady Laura Bush.

But Gov. Schwarzenegger stayed home in hopes of balancing California’s budget, which is long overdue, and the rest of the panel was pretty much canceled out of respect for the delegates and residents of our southern states as Hurricane Gustav touches down.

The convention is supposed to resume today, but for Austin, the real moment was actually yesterday.

At the beginning of the scaled down first day of the convention, Austin’s Angela McDermott, known by the rest of the state as Miss Minnesota 2008, sang the national anthem as planned.

Ms. McDermott took the stage and made us proud. She seemed to impress the crowd by both her presence and her voice.

It’s always nice to witness the accomplishments of our county’s residents, whether it be on a local level, a state level, or in this case, a national level.