By SCOTT MILFRED

How tacky is that?

President Barack Obama autographs a Cheesehead hat worn by a parent at Wednesday's presidential visit to Wright Middle School in Madison, and the guy tells reporters he might sell it on eBay.

"Rather pathetic, to say the least," read one of several comments posted online in reaction to Thursday's article about Mansfield Neblett, a Liberian immigrant whose teenage daughter, Jennifer, attends Wright.

My reaction to Neblett's story was just the opposite.

"Good for him," I thought.

I had the benefit of getting to know Neblett on Wednesday. We chatted and joked around in the school gym while killing time before Obama arrived to tout education reform.

A guy in a nice suit with a foam hat shaped like a giant wedge of cheese on his head tends to attract reporters if he's not watching a football game.

I instantly liked him.

"Why are you wearing a Cheesehead?" I asked.

"Because: A. I'm in Wisconsin," Neblett said. "B. I'm a Packer fan. C. It's cold."

The Secret Service was skeptical.

"Do you have a ticket for this hat?" an agent asked him.

But Neblett's enthusiasm quickly won over the dark suits.

Then I learned how this incredibly patriotic guy from impoverished Liberia, Africa, got to Madison, Wis.

His ancestors were freed slaves in America who moved to Liberia more than a century ago when the United States offered them free land there.

Neblett left Liberia in the late 1980s amid rumors - which eventually came true - of a looming rebel invasion. His father, who had been arrested and lost land after a previous military coup, got him a visa to Spain and urged him to leave.

Neblett worked for a while as a security guard at the American embassy in Paris. After his first wife moved to the United States with their daughter to teach, Neblett got a three-month visa to visit.

He never left.

Without a green card, he said he struggled to make money, working for $5 or $6 an hour at a Downtown Madison hotel. In 2003, he remarried and got a green card after completing reams of paperwork with a lawyer and paying a fine to the IRS.

Then one day he saw a sign for Bachmann Construction while driving along the Beltline. He walked into the company's headquarters without an appointment, explaining to the receptionist he had trade skills from a technical college overseas.

The owner happened to walk by, heard his story and hired him a few days later. Neblett saved enough money from his union construction job to eventually start his own tiny tuck-pointing business.

"If you come from a poor country like Liberia, where people live on a dollar a day, you can't imagine. It's a world apart," Neblett said. "Things are tough over there. People are hurting. But they don't complain.

"We come to America with a different attitude - if I can work hard, I can make it," he continued. "You can be anything you want to be in this country."

Neblett is heading for a second divorce. And his business, which is closely tied to the housing market, is struggling through the recession.

None of that, though, seems to dampen his dreams. His new goal is to earn a degree in criminal justice to become a police officer.

"If I don't make it, it won't be because I didn't try," he said.

Neblett got his Cheesehead signed thanks to the Secret Service, who took it backstage at Wednesday's event before the president spoke. After the speech, Neblett was worried he wouldn't get it back.

Then it suddenly appeared in the hands of a smiling agent with Barack Obama's signature swirled prominently in black marker on its side.

He was overjoyed and gave several interviews to reporters. The eBay comment just popped out, he said.

"I didn't want to be so tacky about it," Neblett said Saturday. "But I was caught up in the moment. I have responsibilities."

When you've hustled so hard for so long to make it in life, it's hard to turn that off. By one estimate, the president's autograph could have fetched about $400.

But Neblett agreed late last week to donate his yellow wedge of foam to the Wisconsin Historical Society. And no, he said with a laugh, he won't pull a Brett Favre and change his mind. He said seeing Obama in person and talking with his daughter afterward about the importance of education is what's valuable.

"We came from being illegal to being in the same room as the president of the United States. Can you imagine!?" he said. "We've come a long way."

And I suspect he'll go much further.

Scott Milfred is editorial page editor for the State Journal. Send e-mail to Scott Milfred at smilfred@madison.com or call Scott Milfred at 608-252-6110.

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