Virginian to give needy coveted spots at inauguration

By MICHAEL E. RUANE The Washington Post WASHINGTON — It was billed as the biggest, most eye-popping of the inauguration hotel packages: the JW Marriott's $1 million "build-your-own-ball" offer. You got 300 rooms, four suites, $200,000 worth of food and drink, and a primo site overlooking the Pennsylvania Avenue parade route. And it was snapped up within hours of Barack Obama's election as president by a customer the hotel declined to identify. Thursday morning, the Marriott is scheduled to announce that the buyer is a successful Virginia businessman who wants to bring to the inauguration disadvantaged people, terminally ill patients, wounded soldiers and others down on their luck. Earl Stafford, 60, of Fairfax County, the founder of a Centreville, Va., technology company who grew up as one of 12 children of a Baptist... [read full story]