President Joe Biden landed in his hometown this morning to eulogize one of his closest childhood friends.
A stoic Biden landed at the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton International Airport at 10:14 a.m. ahead of an 11 a.m. funeral for Tom Bell Sr., who died Sept. 18 at the age of 81.
Bell’s funeral was scheduled to begin at 11 a.m. at St. Paul’s Church in the city’s Green Ridge neighborhood, where both men grew up. Biden deplaned at 10:24 a.m. and his limousine drove off at 10:27 a.m.
Biden counted Bell, along with Larry Orr and the late Charlie Roth, as his closest Scranton friends, and mentioned them in his autobiography and often in speeches.
Biden, whose family moved to Delaware where he became a U.S. senator, has frequently returned to the city since spending about five years of his childhood living in his grandparents’ North Washington Avenue home.
A line formed outside St. Paul's before 9 a.m. Mourners, mostly in black, walked through metal detectors operated by U.S. Secret Service. A white tent was erected along the church, where the presidential motorcade pulled up around 10:43 a.m.
Streets were blocked off in a two- to three-block radius around the church. Pennsylvania State Police on motorcycles arrived first. Then, the president’s black limo pulled in. Secret service closed the tent to allow Biden to walk inside the church.
WVIA News' Borys Krawczeniuk is in attendance at the church and will provide coverage of Biden's eulogy. Check back for updates.
