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Omaha World Herald
02/20/06
Sitting presidents’ visits to Nebraska always
major events
By Rick Ruggles
Omaha World-Herald staff writer
Nebraska is a state of polite people who respect authority, and yet it rarely sees
the nation's president.
The state's small population and reliably Republican tilt mean trips to Nebraska
do not add up on presidential schedules.
"It's a state that is not in play politically," said John Hibbing, University of
Nebraska-Lincoln political science professor.
Iowa is different. Presidents go there "because we're a pretty good test market
and have the first trial heat in the caucuses," said Steffen Schmidt, Iowa State
University political science professor. "Maybe they would come after they
went to Nebraska if we didn't have the caucuses."
When presidents come to Nebraska, it's a big deal. Memorable visits occurred in
January 1971, when President Richard Nixon celebrated the Huskers' first
national football title in Lincoln, and in December 2000, when the Cornhusker
State became the 50th state that President Bill Clinton visited as president.
Nixon loved football, so it was no surprise that he liked the Husker football team
of 1970 and its coach, Bob Devaney.
"He knew his sports. He really did," said former Gov. Charles Thone, who
attended Nixon's appearance at the NU Coliseum 35 years ago. "Nixon was a
real Devaney fan."
Devaney and Don Bryant, NU's sports information director at the time, were
attending an NCAA meeting in Houston in January 1971 when they were
informed that Nixon had scheduled a Husker-tribute trip for Jan. 14. They hustled
back.
Bryant walked into his office in the Coliseum and found that the Secret Service
had converted it into a preparation area for Nixon and his staffers.
"The room was absolutely empty, stripped of everything in it," Bryant recalled last
week. His office, he said, contained only a desk with three telephones on it. He
picked up the receiver of one and was told to hang up because it was a secure
line for the president, he said.
The day of the speech, Thone - who before NU basketball games would routinely
hang up his coat in Bryant's office - walked into the office and was ordered out by
the Secret Service. Thone, now 82, was a congressman at the time.
Newspaper accounts from Nixon's visit describe concern that Vietnam War
protesters would dominate. As Nixon walked to the Coliseum, someone threw a
snowball that hit him in the knee. Nixon picked it up and lobbed it back, smiling.
In his speech, Nixon mentioned the pain of writing letters to family members of
American soldiers who had died in Vietnam.
"Theirs were precious human lives, and what they might have brought to America
in peace no one can know now," Nixon said. "But there would have been poets
among them and doctors and teachers and farmers. There would have been
builders of this nation."
Nixon gave a national championship plaque to Devaney and team captains Dan
Schneiss and Jerry Murtaugh. Student body president Steve Tiwald also sat on
stage, wearing a black armband in protest of the war.
"I remember his eyes went to my black armband, and as he shook hands with
me, his eyes were fixed on the black armband," Tiwald said last week of Nixon.
"It's just so hard for young people today to understand the turmoil that was taking
place across the country, but within families."
Tiwald now runs the Green Earth Institute, a Chicago-area nonprofit organization
dedicated to nutrition and sustainable agriculture.
Presidents typically visit Nebraska once or twice, although Presidents Ronald
Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush came more frequently.
President Clinton visited only once, at the end of his second term.
Clinton went to the University of Nebraska at Kearney, the Great Platte River
Road Archway Monument in Kearney, and the house of Omaha friend and
contributor Vinod Gupta on Dec. 8, 2000.
Casey Mendez was selected by the White House to give the introductory speech
at the UNK Health and Sports Center. Mendez, who now is married and a law
student at Catholic University in Washington, D.C., recalled her nervousness.
"It was a real struggle to talk slowly," she said last week.
After his speech, Clinton walked off the stage and met Mendez's parents and
sister. Clinton hugged then-UNK Chancellor Gladys Styles Johnston's 90-yearold mother, who sat near the front in a wheelchair.
At the arch, Clinton purchased four books and recommended others to his
staffers.
"He'd say 'You'd like that one, you'd like that one,'" Pete Kotsiopulos recalled last
week. Kotsiopulos was Kearney's mayor at the time.
Gupta held a $1,000-perperson Democratic fundraiser in his Regency-area
home.
Alison Kutler, an Omaha native who helped organize the event for the president,
said Clinton was in an excellent mood as he arrived at Gupta's house.
The Florida Supreme Court had just ruled in favor of a hand recount of some
ballots in the disputed presidential election between George W. Bush and Al
Gore. At that moment, Gore's hopes remained alive.
Gupta recalled Clinton going in back to meet the wait staff and chefs, and
walking across the street to sample cookies from children who beckoned to him.
"He's a master at human touch," Gupta said.
World-Herald researcher Jeanne Hauser contributed to this report.