SCRANTON, Pa. – Two high school seniors in Scranton, Pa., are paying a high price for their interest in politics.

Colin Saltry and Joey Daniel say they skipped gym class on Monday to rush over to a diner where Sen. Barack Obama’s motorcade had just pulled in for an impromptu breakfast stop.

The two met Obama, and they say he even signed excuse slips for them to show their teachers. That didn’t work. Saltry and Daniel got one-day suspensions for leaving school grounds, and Saltry has been ordered to resign as senior class president.

Saltry says it was worth being suspended to meet Obama, but he didn’t expect to be bounced from his class presidency.

Assistant Superintendent William King says the rules are clear, and adds that if the students had approached a teacher about wanting to leave campus, they probably would have been given permission.