Kerry McQuisten sat in the ballroom at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, and as Trump walked through the room she sensed the historic nature of what she was watching.

A few minutes later, on the evening of Nov. 15, the former president announced that he would seek a second four-year term in the 2024 election.

McQuisten, Baker City mayor and a 2022 Oregon gubernatorial candidate, described it as a “once-in-a-lifetime experience.”

“We were watching an historic event in the making,” she said. “I’m so glad I had the opportunity to do that.”

Less than a week earlier, McQuisten had figured that when Trump announced his candidacy — as he had recently been hinting he would do— she would be watching on TV.

“I truly hadn’t expected to be invited,” she wrote in an email to the Baker City Herald.

But after her invitation arrived on Nov. 11, McQuisten said she “had to scramble to make travel arrangements.”

McQuisten accompanied Solomon Yue, the Oregon Republican Party’s national committeeman to the Republican National Committee.

McQuisten said that as far as she can tell, she and Yue were the only Oregonians in the audience of about 1,000 at Mar-a-Lago.

McQuisten said she arrived at the estate about 90 minutes before the gates opened at 6:30 p.m. Eastern time. She said Trump started his speech around 9 p.m.

He spoke for at least an hour, she said.

McQuisten said her and Yue’s seats were directly in front of the stage and in the center, “so we were right in front” of Trump, she wrote in the email.

“There were about 1,000 people in the room, most standing at the back,” she wrote. “Right behind them was a huge bank of media, and the floodlights were something else.

The Newsmax and Fox cameras were pointed right at us, so we were visible on TV through most of the leadup to the speech.”

McQuisten said she was excited about the chance to meet several people during the event, including actor Kevin Sorbo and Alveda King, a niece of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.