by Scott Lamb
I’m a child of the Space Age and remember well, as a small child, John F. Kennedy’s vision to get us to the Moon. I remember sitting on my living room floor in July of 1969, when Neil Armstrong put his foot on the Moon. I believe that the space program has brought about far more benefits than simply the exploration of space. The side benefits of medical technology, navigation technology, digital technology, audiovisual, you know, it’s endless. And largely it was launched from the scientific research that was done in order to help us in the space race. So I think there are tremendous benefits that we would gain from an accelerated space exploration program. I certainly would be in strong favor of increasing our efforts in space exploration and technology.5
Hugh O’Brian encapsulated his vision of leadership and youth development in a speech he often gave, titled “The Freedom to Choose.” President Ronald Reagan and Pastor Robert Schuller, both friends of O’Brian, used similar themes in their own speeches and sermons. So does Huckabee. O’Brian’s words serve to explain Huckabee’s own vision of himself and the importance of helping others envision their God-given potential:
I do NOT believe we are all born equal—CREATED equal in the eyes of God, YES—but physical and emotional differences, parental guidelines, varying environments, being in the right place at the right time, all play a role in enhancing or limiting an individual’s development. But I DO believe every man and woman, if given the opportunity and encouragement to recognize his or her potential, regardless of background, has the freedom to choose in our world. Will an individual be a taker or a giver in life? Will that person be satisfied merely to exist or seek a meaningful purpose? Will he or she dare to dream the impossible dream?
I believe every person is created as the steward of his or her own destiny with great power for a specific purpose: to share with others, through service, a reverence for life in a spirit of love.6
CHAPTER 9
(NO) TEENAGE WASTELAND
1971–1972
How many towns could you grow up in where as a seventh grade kid you’ve got the keys to the radio station—and you’re in charge? You’ve got to be in the right place at the right time for that to happen—and Hope was special.
—LESTER SITZES, LIFELONG FRIEND OF MIKE HUCKABEE
THE WHO? YES, OUTSIDE OF THE BEATLES, ONE OF MIKE HUCKABEE’S favorite bands was the Who. “I had most of their albums, and my favorite was Tommy, their rock opera,” he said.1 The band’s November 1971 release of “Baba O’Riley”—better known by the lyrics of its chorus, “teenage wasteland,” kicked off introspection about the excesses of the late 1960s. “ ‘Baba O’Riley’ is about the absolute desolation of teenagers at Woodstock, where everybody was smacked out on acid and 20 people, or whatever, had brain damage,” lead singer Pete Townshend explained decades later. “The contradiction was that it became a celebration: ‘Teenage Wasteland, yes! We’re all wasted!’ ”2
The introspection continued as Rolling Stone that same month published a two-part series of articles by Hunter S. Thompson, titled “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.” Thompson expanded the articles into a book with the same title, which has now become a classic work from the decade, and a movie, with Johnny Depp playing the lead character. “[The book] perfectly captured the zeitgeist of the post–’60s era,” stated Billboard magazine.3 Rolling Stone said Thompson gave “voice to the mindset of a generation that had held high ideals and was now crashing hard against the walls of American reality.”4 Of course, both of those reviews of Thompson’s work came much later. In 1971, most Americans were not yet ready to process the 1960s. To embrace or not to embrace the previous decade, that was the question—and still is.
No town is without its problems, but Hope, Arkansas, was no “teenage wasteland,” not even among the youth who loved playing rock music. Huckabee had joined his friends to form a variety of bands that played in churches and at youth functions. One of these groups, which came together around this period, was his Bois d’Arc Boogie Band, named after the lake just south of Hope on which he and his friends had spent many days together over the years. The group covered songs from all their favorite bands, but they also played the new “Christian rock” music they were hearing. One historian has noted, “By 1977, approximately one thousand ‘Jesus rock’ bands were performing in churches, outdoor concerts, and alcohol-free ‘Jesus nightclubs.’ ”5 Larry Norman, the father of Christian rock, asked (and wrote a song with the title), “Why should the devil have all the good music?”6 Huckabee, a fan of Norman, responded by picking up his bass guitar.
Huckabee prefers action to ideology, movement over motionless theories. He knows that taking a stand involves both the mind and the feet. He doesn’t devalue the intellectual side of a problem, but he doesn’t want to get stuck in the proverbial ivory tower, discussing but never doing. Two of Huckabee’s favorite Bible verses exemplify this dual focus: “Come now, let us reason together” (Isaiah 1:18 ESV), and “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13 NKJV). Thinking and doing—that became Huckabee’s strategy for making an impact in the world.
For example, the journalism department sponsored a forum on the topic of pollution. Once again, the yearbook shows Huckabee at the center, sitting on the stage, leading the discussion.7 Though the environment did not register as a major concern with most adults in 1973, by the time Huckabee became governor two decades later, he would lead his state to make such issues a high priority.
He served as the vice president of the student council his junior year, organizing the annual events of high school life, along with another round of his Operation Goodwill. The executive members of the council went to a convention held that year in Huntsville, Alabama. Part of the fun involved a tour of the space and rocket museum, rather ironic since Huckabee had just spent the previous summer at the Kennedy Space Center. Drawing on his recent experiences in Florida, he gave a speech to his peers on the “benefits of the space program.”8
Accompanying Huckabee on the trip was his friend and fellow council member Bud McLarty, the younger brother of Mack McLarty—President Clinton’s friend and the White House chief of staff during his first administration. During his own journey through high school, Mack had also taken part in student council. This is where you find one strong connection between the success of Mack McLarty and that of Mike Huckabee: Mrs. Anna E. Williams, a Spanish teacher and the faculty sponsor of the council, strongly influenced both of these men.
Mrs. Williams, who wore pearls around her neck and her hair neatly up in a bun, made disciples—that is, she saw certain students as having strong potential for leadership if only they could be chiseled a bit and refined. She was a very proper woman, with dignity and Southern refinement. She practiced and taught good manners and etiquette. Most important, she commanded the respect of all her students, but especially those serving on the council.
Once you became an executive member of the student council, Mrs. Williams expected you to arrive at school early and be prepared to show her your list. What list? The daily “to do” list that you had written out the night before in preparation for an efficient day—not simply a day of getting a lot of things done, but of making sure you were getting the right things accomplished. To be on the good side of Mrs. Williams meant that you weren’t going to be sleeping in, hitting the snooze button, and showing up disorganized for school. That wasn’t the way leaders were built, and, over the years, Mrs. Williams had built a lot of them.
Huckabee stays up late and gets up early, and when he rises, he already knows what his day holds in store for him—because of those lists. He readily credits Mrs. Williams’s pivotal influence in his life as having shaped him.
Though nearly a decade older than Huckabee, Mack McLarty has also publicly said the same thing about Mrs. Williams. Like Huckabee, McLarty’s family and colleagues know about the list making and
discipline. Not every family member is fond of the list-making trait, especially when on vacation, but the leadership successes of both these men attest to the powerful influence this one particular woman had in both their lives.9
Huckabee continued his broadcasting work alongside Haskell Jones at KXAR as the radio station celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary that spring. From the photograph of the packed banquet hall of people gathered for the celebration, you get an idea of the positive influence this station had on its community. Of course, much of that influence came by way of Jones’s personal investment in the town he had adopted as his own.10
Huckabee called many of the high school sporting events for KXAR, including the girls basketball games. When you take a look at the box scores from these games and see who was doing most of the scoring, you can imagine that the name “Janet McCain” must have rolled off his tongue and over the airwaves hundreds of times each season. Janet, of course, later became Mrs. Huckabee. How many people can say that even before they dated their future wife, they talked about her on the radio? With all the scoring Janet did on the court, Huckabee certainly couldn’t have forgotten her name. And speaking of forgetting names, Lester Sitzes recalled the explanation for Huckabee’s ability to call football games without stumbling over names—especially the names of the visiting team’s players. “If he forgot a name in the middle of an active play, he’d just make one up. Mike told me, ‘It’s radio. The important thing is to keep rolling along. You can’t really mess up if you’re quick on your toes.’ ”11
When pressed for an explanation for why so many successful people came from Hope—and how they all seemed to start so young in their accomplishments, Sitzes answered, “How many towns could you grow up in where as a seventh grade kid you’ve got the keys to the radio station—and you’re in charge? You’ve got to be in the right place at the right time for that to happen—and Hope was special.”12 Haskell Jones let students run the airwaves. Alex Washburn, the owner of the newspaper, had high school kids write up news and sports articles. To be sure, he got the news cheaper that way. But he also did it because he believed in giving the next generation a chance to shine. Ralph Routon, who ended up as the editor of an award-winning newspaper in Colorado, got his start writing for the Hope Star. Where else could young teenagers get so much experience?
In 1963, Mack McLarty joined up with a thousand other high school juniors from across the state, including his childhood playmate Bill Clinton, for a week of Boys State. This nationwide program—both in the “Boys State” and “Girls State” versions, is an American Legion–sponsored program designed to promote leadership, patriotism, and knowledge of how civil government operates. Community leaders would sponsor a vanload of high-caliber students and send them off to make their hometowns proud by competing for “elected office.” McLarty did not disappoint, returning home victorious with the top prize of governor. Clinton was also recognized, having been marked as one of the two most outstanding delegates from Arkansas that year. Clinton’s win set him up for a historic trip to the White House in 1963, where he shook hands with President Kennedy.
In July 1972, Huckabee loaded up with a group of classmates and friends and headed to Camp Robinson in North Little Rock for their turn at Boys State. Janet McCain earned a spot as a delegate that year, too; Girls State took place at the same location, but on a different week. In retrospect, Boys State was the second of four life-altering trips Huckabee would take during high school (the first being his NASA adventure).
The students stayed in rustic military barracks. “Those days it was run like boot camp with calisthenics and exercises every morning,” Huckabee recalled. “Reveille, assembly, marching everywhere we went, marching in time—very militaristic.”
The weather was hot, the drills were grueling, and the boys loved every minute of it. Huckabee said, “It was a ‘misery loves company’ sort of experience. The deprivation of all your favorite things, having to sit through long assemblies, junior counselors who would pop you upside the head if you went to sleep during a speech.”
“It was very patriotic,” Janet Huckabee added.13
The highlight of the week was when the delegates began campaigning for the elected offices. When Huckabee arrived at Boys State, did he have a plan to win? Did McLarty’s legendary win nine years earlier inspire Huckabee to think he too had a chance? “I knew there would be a governor elected at Boys State,” Huckabee recalled. “I figured I would check it out when I got there. When I arrived, I discovered a lot of guys—like my future friend Rick Caldwell—had been thinking and preparing for it beforehand. They brought printed posters and cards. They had a whole organization set up. I thought, Well, gosh, I can’t compete in this. I had nothing. Nothing.”14
Apparently, the underfunded, underdog political campaigns Huckabee is now well known for had their origins at Boys State.
“I had a second thought,” Huckabee said. “I figured, since I didn’t spend any money, so I had nothing to lose. The campaign would come down to whether or not you can make the speech and win your party’s nomination and then the overall elections. So, I threw my name in the hat and made my speeches. And, not to be immodest, but I blew everybody out.”
To be more precise, Huckabee beat Dexter Reed 778 to 153. Reed, one of the best basketball players to ever lace up shoes in Arkansas, would go on to become an all-time leading scorer for Memphis State. He had come to Boys State that week with nearly universal name recognition and still lost to Huckabee in a landslide. Huckabee also ended Caldwell’s campaign in a crushing manner.
How? Huckabee says it was the speeches. Sure, he made his way around the camp, meeting the other delegates and shaking hands like everybody else. “But I have people to this day who come up and tell me, ‘I was at Boys State with you. I couldn’t believe your speech, I couldn’t believe somebody our age could speak like that,’ ” Huckabee said.
When asked exactly what he spoke on, or how much preparation he had made, Huckabee didn’t remember the topic or having had any genuine opportunity to prepare. “It was extemporaneous,” he said. He did recall making the strategic decision to focus his words on differentiating himself: “There’s a pack you have to break out from—don’t ever do what everyone out there is already doing: ‘Vote for me! Here’s my card! Here’s my poster!’ Instead, I got up in front of everyone and said, ‘I didn’t come here this week with a bunch of cards. I didn’t come here with a bunch of posters. I came here with a love of this country and a desire to stand up and represent our generation. The governor of Boys State is going to be asked to speak for our class, for our group, for our generation. So, what matters is not that you can go into the bathroom and shake everybody’s hand. What matters is—can you articulate what matters to us and explain why America needs us to lead this country?”
The point was simply that with so many candidates running around with a mind-set that “shaking a hand or slapping a back leads to a vote,” it was hard to get a moment’s peace—even in the bathroom. He poked fun at something everyone knew to be true—the glad-handing was too much and came across as manipulative. Drawing on Malcolm Gladwell’s concept of an “outlier,”15 Huckabee analyzed his victory at Boys State: “It’s always the risk. Will the outlier be the trendsetter or will he be the guy who looks like an eccentric idiot? You never know which way it’s going to go, but you can’t innovate and do great things simply by copying what a dozen other people are doing.”
At this point in the conversation about Boys State, Huckabee drew a sketch of his philosophy for leadership. “Why is Apple Computer so successful? Because Steve Jobs was a weirdo, an outlier. He didn’t think like people thought. And nobody thought Steven Spielberg had any future when he was such a weird little kid playing with his 8-millimeter camera all the time. But nobody is laughing at Steven Spielberg now. Just look at all these stories of people who have done significan
t things, and they did it because they didn’t do what everyone else did.”16
In addition to hanging with his hometown friends, Huckabee also met dozens of young guys with whom he would remain friends for life. Rick Caldwell said, “As a result of getting acquainted with Mike and humbled by him through that election process, we became fast friends. He defeated me so decisively and I was so humiliated, I never since that day sought an elected office, which is one of the nicest things he’s ever done for me.”17
When asked whether he saw something in Huckabee that made him think his friend would go on to be the leader of Arkansas, or even a U.S. presidential candidate, Caldwell answered, “I saw his charisma, his leadership, his ability to connect with all kinds of people and hear them and make them feel like they would be listened to when he was a seventeen-year-old kid. That was all there, even back then. I knew that the gifts and abilities he had went beyond anybody else in our age group. He was just in a different league.”18
Caldwell is quick to point out that Huckabee’s greatest strengths are found in his character and principles, not simply in his gifting as a speaker. “Mike had a real concern for issues. I remember when he was in high school, he heard an African-American war hero [USAF general Daniel “Chappie” James] deliver a great address at the Hugh O’Brian Space Seminar. So Mike invited him to speak to the Arkansas State Student Council. It [inviting an African-American] became a political hot potato, but after the speaker came and was well received, everybody celebrated. But that was a stretch in 1972 in southern parts of Arkansas. In 1972, Mike was ahead of his time with his peers. He was very color-blind. He truly saw the value of people of all races, of all creeds, of all colors.”19
