With nearly a dozen television news crews swarming around him, a handful of balloons and a tiny red carpet rolled out for him, Kyle Dunn got his first glimpse of celebrity Friday.
The 5-year-old Silver Spring boy was treated to a special belated birthday surprise as Metro’s top officials gave the young Metro enthusiast — he reeled off the names of nearly every Red Line station when quizzed by Metro’s top rail official — a behind-the-scenes tour.
Kyle, who actually celebrated his birthday July 4, was ushered through for a special “boardroom strategy session” with interim General Manager Dan Tangherlini, where the boy suggested increasing bus service in his neighborhood.
“Can we play with the Metro stuff?” asked Kyle, clutching a new orange Metro vest and fluorescent hat.
“That’s what we do everyday,” Tangherlini said.
Tangherlini said he decided to offer Kyle the special tour after his aunt, Jonnell Waller, sent a heartfelt letter to him earlier this month.
“He’s a wonderful child, who at the beginning of his life was faced with hearing problems, and things, he has since conquered,” the letter states.
“He loves Metro so very much and says he wants to own it someday.”
When asked by a television reporter what he wanted to be when he grows up, Kyle had a quick response.
“I want to work for Metro,” he proudly said. “I want to drive the trains.”
Kyle and his family got a tour of the Operations Control Center at Metro’s headquarters in Northwest, a tour of a station kiosk at the Gallery Place-Chinatown station, and to see how trains are repaired at the Brentwood Rail Yard just a few blocks from the Rhode Island station.
Kyle’s mother, Nardra Johnson, said the tour is something her son “will never, ever forget.”
