ABC News correspondent Ann Compton never dreamed before Sept. 11 that she'd be sitting on a plane with the president of the United States witnessing presidential emergency evacuation plans.

But that's exactly what happened after the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City. Ms. Compton, veteran White House correspondent, was the only broadcast reporter allowed to remain aboard Air Force One with President Bush when he was unable to return to Washington that day.

"Here's what I do for a living," she said Wednesday night at Pennsylvania State University's Shenango Campus in Sharon. "It's a privilege to have a front row seat to history."

Ms. Compton, who is also an ABC radio news correspondent, has traveled around the globe and through all 50 states reporting on presidents, vice presidents and first ladies.

The chief Washington correspondent for ABC News presented the fourth annual Greenberger Family Memorial Lecture, "A View from Washington."

Before the lecture, Ms. Compton spent the afternoon speaking to community members, various Penn State-Shenango student groups, Shenango Valley Chamber of Commerce's Junior Leadership Shenango, local high school journalism students and Penn State faculty, staff and advisory board members.

About 300 people at the lecture listened as Ms. Compton gave a behind-the-scenes look at the forces that shape the president and the presidency, the media's coverage of government, and political issues surrounding Israelis and Palestinians.

Ms. Compton gave a detailed description of her Sept. 11 experiences with the president. She said she vividly remembers the stunned expression on his face as he sat before a classroom of second-graders and received the whispered words from the White House chief of staff, "America is under attack."

After the news broke, Ms. Compton said, she and two others were picked from a pool of 13 journalists to accompany President Bush on Air Force One. She recalled the commotion of having to go live on the air with Peter Jennings only to cut the simulcast short because the president's plane was leaving for another concealed location. Ms. Compton said she tried getting in touch with her family, but cellular phones weren't working that day.

"I have four kids; three are undergraduates in college. I didn't worry too much, but I wanted to reach them and couldn't get through to them, nor to my husband in the medical office."

After riding Air Force One for awhile, she said, they eventually reached an air base and were escorted to an underground location where cell phones began working again.

"I had this message from my daughter saying, 'Mommy, how come you had time to tell Peter Jennings you were all right and not me?' " she said.

Ms. Compton said what sticks out in her mind the most was an e-mail she read after returning to the White House that day.

"It's amazing how very little I knew about the attacks. I opened my laptop and the first e-mail I had was from my son who said he'd lost a fraternity brother who was on the 93rd floor of the World Trade Center," she said.

"Through the smoke, fire and twisted steel I suddenly had a human face for the first time to connect with it. I sat down and I cried," she said.

Ms. Compton, who said she has never taken a journalism class, began covering President Ford in 1974 when she arrived in Washington.

She was the first woman and youngest reporter assigned to the White House by a network television news organization.

She said women were a rarity when she started as a White House correspondent and she "stuck out like a sore thumb.

"There were very few women back then in the networks and I was very young," she said.

The Greenberger Family Memorial Lectureship was established at Penn State-Shenango in 1998 through an endowment from the Greenberger family. The family changed the name of the lectureship in honor of Edward W. and Paul D. Greenberger. Lawyer Mark Greenberger, his son, lawyer Jeff Greenberger, and other family members attended Wednesday's lecture.