Remarks to the Community in West Memphis, Arkansas

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, Dec 20, 1999

December 10, 1999

Thank you. Was she great or what? Let's give her another hand. [Applause] She was unbelievable. That's great.

Well, to Dr. Glen Fenter and your board chairman, my longtime friend Alex Coulter; and to Sandy and all the students from the college and all the faculty members, thank you. Thank you for being exhibit A for the new economy in eastern Arkansas.

Mayor Johnson, Judge Williams, Representative Jones, Representative Steele, I think I speak for all of us when I say we are delighted to be here. I want to thank Lieutenant Governor Rockefeller and the other people from State government who came over to be with us. I thank Secretary Riley for coming down with us; and my longtime friend Carl Whillock, who I'll say a little more about in a minute; and Rodney Slater, who I'll say a little more about in a minute.

I also would like to thank this White House staff who have heard me say now 5,000 times, we have to do more for the Delta. My Deputy Chief of Staff, Maria Echaveste; Lynn Cutler; Lisa Kountoupes--it is their job to monitor everything the Federal Government does that might, in their wildest imagination, have a positive effect on Arkansas and the other States in the Delta. And I thank them.

But I want to say a special word of thanks to Senator Blanche Lambert Lincoln and to Marion Berry, who, long before he was a Congressman, was the farmers' advocate in our administration in Washington, and long before he did that, he used to host all of us at the Gillette coon suppers. [Laughter] That's my ultimate trump card with every Congressman or Senator from every other State in America who tells me they know more about rural America than I do. I say, "Well, how many coon suppers have you been to?" [Laughter] I haven't lost an argument in 7 years up there. [Laughter]

You have absolutely no idea the amount of time and effort and the passion that these two people have put in to trying to help eastern Arkansas and the Delta. You cannot imagine. They have been magnificent. I deal with Members of Congress from all across America. I deal with people who are really good at what they do. There is nobody--nobody--who has done a better job standing up for the people they represent than Blanche Lambert Lincoln and Marion Berry.

I may have a little trouble getting through this speech today. First, I'm a little tired. I talked to Hilary last--about 1 o'clock last night, and we talked three times between 11 and 1. And she was kind of jealous that I was coming down here. And I want you to know she's doing great, and I'm proud of her for what she's doing, and my daughter is doing great.

I woke up early this morning and started thinking about what I wanted to say. It's a little harder now. I look out in this crowd, and I know half of you by your first names. There's old Bobby Glover sitting there, gave me the first contribution I got when I ran for attorney general in 1976. You could have stopped this whole thing if you hadn't done that. [Laughter] Mary Louise Poindexter had me to the first revival of the Elaine Christmas parade. I've been colder in Elaine than any public official in the history of America. [Laughter] We know east Arkansas--that's not the royal "we," that's all of our crowd here. And we owe eastern Arkansas. Rodney's roots are here. He did such a good job for you as a highway commissioner and at ASU, and he's been a superb Secretary of Transportation. Carl Whillock was the president of ASU, head of the co-ops. When Marion went home, he came to Washington; he thought somebody ought to stick up for the ordinary farmers in the Department of Agriculture. I see Kevin Smith out th ere. I've had so many people here. You can't imagine how many people from Arkansas we've got working in Washington. It's sort of a subterranean plot. That's how we stayed in all these years; we had people that showed up and remembered who they were working for.

I was thinking about the first time I came to Crittenden County to John Gammon's wild game dinner when they were still meeting in that--that's before the dinner moved uptown--when they were still meeting in a place that had a tin roof. And the first night, a woman got up, a young woman got up to sing "If I Can Help Somebody," and the darndest rain came up you ever saw. And it was raining on that tin roof and it sounded like a musical background, and she was just beautiful, singing.

Ness Sechrest reminded me that the first time I saw him, I had to traipse all the way out to Horseshoe Lake and fish with him and do other sundry things that he thought were necessary to decide whether he should support me or not. [Laughter] He's been making the same mistake for 24 years now.

And I came here today to make another installment on the work we've been doing together for two decades. I'm very proud that I signed the bill when I was in my very first term as Governor to create the vo-tech school here. And then in 1991 I signed the bill that enabled you to convert it to a community college. And since I have been President, the enrollment at this college--the stories like Sandy's--the enrollment has increased by tenfold of accredited students-- tenfold. And that's something you can be really proud of, and it will make a difference.