One of the pluses that comes from living in Arkansas is knowing our elected officials, and you don’t have to be members of the same party. Chesley Pruet, a former well-known oilman and Republican from El Dorado and his wife, Bibba became friends with the Clinton’s and after Governor Clinton was elected president were invited to a State Dinner.                                                                                                      

In the receiving line the President said, “Hello, Chesley, Bibba, welcome to the White House.”

Chesley replied, “Hello Bill…” Bibba poked him and whispered, “It’s Mr. President, Chesley!”

Chesley quickly said, “Oh, I’m sorry Bill… Uh, I mean Mr. President. The President laughed.

I’ve known a number of Arkansas elected officials over the years, and this is a recounting of some of the interactions with one. We met Bill Clinton at a friend’s house after he announced as a candidate for Attorney General. He won the AG’s race, and two years later, ran for governor, and became the nation’s youngest governor. When he ran for re-election in the 1980 election, we were having a fundraiser for Governor Clinton at our house the day of the election. He spent the night in our guest house. That night after he had been on the phone with his re-election team workers, I asked; “How does it look?”

            The Governor said, “We’re going to win, but by only ten to fifteen thousands votes.”

             He lost by that amount. Governor Clinton left the next morning and that afternoon I went to our guest house. There was a deck of cards on a coffee table. He had been playing Solitaire. The cards were the faces of presidents.

            It was a year later when he stopped by my office, talked, and told me his trip around the state was to see if his supporters thought he should run for governor again. I did, and I’m sure others encouraged him.

We saw Governor Clinton frequently during the next 10 years, and he appointed me to the Board of Commissioners of the Department of Pollution Control and Ecology.

He had been elected to his fifth term, when Vertis and I were at the Magnolia Steak cook-off. He walked up, joined us, and as we sat there and ate our steaks, the Governor said he was considering running for President.

            After he announced his bid for president, I began getting calls to help in the campaign. I was President of the Arkansas Wildlife Federation and Chairman of the Board of Commissioners of the Arkansas Department of Pollution Control and Ecology.  Soon I was off the New Hampshire for radio interviews, meetings, and campaigning.  A few weeks later I substituted for Hillary to speak to the state’s Conservation Coalition. I told the environment group Governor Clinton would be the greenest President ever.

            After Governor Clinton won the Democratic Presidential nomination, and the campaign for president begin, I urged the Arkansas Wildlife Federation to award the Governor a plaque recognizing his environmental work. That took a little convincing since a goodly number of members were staunch Republicans, but since the Governor was an Arkansawyer, they agreed. My introduction was as close as I could get without actually endorsing him. I said, “And now THE NEXT PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, GOVERNOR WILLIAM JEFFERSON CLINTON.” Yes, some of my Republican Federation members thought I went a little overboard, but they gave him a standing ovation anyway.

            The Presidential Campaign had really heated up when I got a call from a National Television News Group to interview me. I agreed. The interview was to be about the environment so, they picked as a backdrop a bare, clear-cut-logged field. It was a really desolate spot, but they insisted, set up the cameras, and started the interview.

The interviewers’ first comment was: “Since you are Chairman of the Commission on Pollution Control and Ecology and President of the Arkansas Wildlife Federation, you are the leading environmentalist in the state. Is that right?”

For some reason I didn’t like the way the interview was shaping up, and I said, “Well, I do hold those positions, but that doesn’t make me the leading environmentalists in the state.”

He ignored that comment and said, “Well, from your position you should be aware of Governor Clinton’s environmental record.”

“Yes.”

“Then tell me; what is the biggest environmental mistake Governor Clinton has made during his five terms as Governor?”

That’s when I realized the filming of the interview in the clear-cut, the casting me as the leading environmentalist, and now I was being set up with a “Do you still beat your wife?” question. Any negative comment would be used in an anti-Clinton campaign commercial. I took a deep breath and then started by saying “Well, let me see”…and then I slowly recounted every positive environmental success and action as if I was hunting for the bad one, and then finally I said, “You know I can’t think of any mistatkes the Governor has made.” Well, the interviewer didn’t give up easily but finally, thirty minutes later, he turned to one of his colleagues and said, “I can’t do any good.” The filmed interview never ran.

A year after Governor Clinton was elected President Vertis and I attended a large dinner in Washington D. C. to recognize the Arkansas volunteers who helped elect the President. When the President stood to make his speech, he held up a piece of paper. “I have a speech ready but instead I’m going to read this letter, and I hope I don’t embarrass him, but would Richard Mason please stand.”

I had sent a letter to the Wall Street Journal canceling my subscription because of the negative coverage of the President, it said, in part; “If your economic advice is as accurate as your coverage of the president, then I need to ignore it. Cancel my subscription.” I ended a long letter to the editor with: “This letter has got about as much chance of being published as Dan Quale has being elected President.” I had sent the President a copy of that letter. When he read the Dan Quale part the crowd roared. I mentioned among other things that President Clinton had added more acreage to our National Parks than any president since Teddy Roosevelt.

I didn’t see the President again until he was the speaker for the El Dorado Promise Scholarship Signing Day; Murphy Oil’s $50,000,000 tuition gift to El Dorado High School Seniors. When he finish his speech, I noticed a lady I knew, and a woman I figured was a Secret Service agent, looking at the crowd in the bleachers. We weren’t seated with the group of dignitaries so it took a while to find us, but we were finally pointed out. We went backstage and there was the former president waiting to speak to us. Just a friendly talk for fifteen or twenty minutes. He mentioned his doctor was allowing him to have fish once a week.

“The next time you’re in New York, call my office and we’ll go to lunch,” he said.

It was over a year before we made it to New York, and the President had already moved to Northern New York State.

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