Remarks at the Earle High School Dedication Ceremony in Earle, Arkansas

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, Dec 20, 1999

December 10, 1999

Thank you very much. Wow! Well, this is a wonderful end to one of the best days I've had in a long, long time. We started out this morning in Little Rock, and I spoke at the annual Chamber of Commerce banquet. I talked to them about the library and the public policy center I wanted to build not just for Little Rock but for our entire State. And then I went to West Memphis, to the community college, which I helped to establish, where the enrollment, by the way, has increased by tenfold since I've been President. I'm very proud of them, and I know all of you are.

And I told them that I was going to support the legislation sponsored by Senator Lincoln and Congressman Berry, with $110 million for a Delta commission to invest in the economic future of the Mississippi Delta next year.

Then I got a little barbecue. [Laughter] And sidled up here to Earle. Thank you, Secretary Riley, for making this journey with me and the journey of the last 22 years now. Thank you, Secretary Slater, for coming out of the Arkansas Delta and going all the way to become Secretary of Transportation.

I'm not sure you heard the superintendent when he said this, but Secretary Slater's chief of staff and a longtime supporter of mine is a wonderful attorney named Jerry Malone, who graduated from Earle High School. Jerry, stand up. Where are you? There you go.

I want to thank my friend of 30 years, the Lieutenant Governor, Rockefeller, for making this trip with us today. I thank my longtime friends County Judge Brian Williams and Mayor Sherman Smith. We also have the head of the National Endowment for the Humanities, Bill Ferris, who is from the other side of the Mississippi River in Mississippi, here with us today. I thank him for coming.

And I want to introduce the vice president and foundation executive of MCI, Caleb Schutz, who has decided to help this school--I'll explain more about why later, but thank you very much. I'd like to thank all the people from the Arkansas Department of Education who are here, Simon and others. Thank you, Principal Nicks and members of the school board. And thank you, Jimmi Lampley; you were terrific.

I have to tell you, when I met President Kennedy in 1963, I didn't give him a library. [Laughter] I didn't even give him one of my Trojan band jackets. [Laughter] Now I've got this football jacket, making me an honorary Bulldog.

You won't believe this, but when we were down in West Memphis, we had this meeting about how we could train people in the Delta that don't have jobs to get some of these real good jobs in transportation. There are 80,000 jobs driving trucks and working in terminals, for example, vacant today.

So Secretary Slater was working on that, and he invited the man who runs the USA truckline from Fort Smith, but they train all their truck drivers here in West Memphis. So the guy's been my friend forever---I mean, he's been my friend for 27 years and, coincidentally, runs this truckline, and he trains all his truckers here in West Memphis.

So right before I come up here to get this jacket and become an honorary Bulldog, he whips--I said, "Have you got any pictures of your wife and daughter?" And he said, "Yes." He takes out this beautiful picture of his wife and his 12-year-old daughter, and they've got a bulldog there. I said, "What's that bulldog's name?" And he smiled, and he said, "Clinton." [Laughter]

So I'm going to have a picture taken in this jacket and' send it to him, and he'll have two bulldogs in the house. [Laughter] And we both respond in the same way. It will be great.

Finally, let me say a word about your superintendent. He has been a friend of mine a long time. I have known him probably since before most of the students here were alive. I have eaten his good food in his former life. [Laughter] I have met with his students. I have listened to year after year after year after year of fresh, vigorous ideas and passionate commitment, believing that the children of the Delta were as smart as any kids on Earth and had a right to the best education on Earth and become anything else they wanted to be on Earth.

I've had him sidle up to me with that sort of soft voice--[laughter]---you know, the way he kind of does his head like this, you know-- [laughter]--I know him, man. I know him. I've been there. "Now, Governor, we just need a little money for this little thing here." [Laughter] "Now, you know how you love these kids. You don't want to let them get behind here."

What are you laughing about, Leon? You do the same thing. [Laughter]

So anyway, I was thrilled when he came here. You know, our tenures pretty well coincide. He came here not long after I became President. And I wasn't surprised when you approved that big bond issue, because this guy believes in your kids. He spent a lifetime--a lifetime that happened to coincide with this dramatic change in the economic and social organization of the Mississippi Delta. He spent a lifetime trying to lift up our kids, and I say thank you, my friend, I appreciate that.