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Craig steps into Hall of Fame

Betsy Z. Russell
Staff writer
October 14, 2007

BOISE – A seemingly humbled Idaho Sen. Larry Craig took a first step toward rehabilitating his image Saturday, showing up with a large cadre of relatives, staffers and supporters to a ceremony in which he joined 11 other inductees into “Idaho’s Hall of Fame.”

The results were mixed, with a media crush outside that apparently caused Craig to detour twice on his way into the Boise Centre on the Grove, and national mirth that preceded the event. “I hope in a very sincere way that the attention that has been brought to me has in no way lessened the honor that you are receiving tonight,” Craig told the other inductees as he accepted his large plaque.

Craig’s next step comes Tuesday, when he’s planning a carefully orchestrated, exclusive prime-time interview with NBC’s Matt Lauer. That follows a month and a half of complete silence toward the Idahoans he represents, beyond his two no-questions press conferences the week after news broke of his arrest and guilty plea in a men’s room sex-solicitation sting at the Minneapolis airport.

At the first of those two appearances, Craig strenuously denied being gay and blamed the media for his guilty plea, and at the second, he announced his “intent” to resign from the Senate on Sept. 30, a decision he later reversed.

On Saturday night, the well-dressed crowd of 220-plus cheered former Idaho Lt. Gov. David Leroy, the evening’s master of ceremonies, when he said the awards look back “over the span of a term of office, a decade, a generation.”

Leroy also told the crowd, “As the cameras outside testify, this banquet is a hot ticket.”

Hall of Fame officials, whose ties to Craig go back to when he was master of ceremonies for the group’s first such event in 1995, said all the attention can only help a group that has struggled to keep running. Founder Dee Klenck noted enthusiastically that her group made CNN, and board member Willa Jean Cox said, “It’ll help immensely.”

Idaho’s Hall of Fame at one time had six acres donated by the city of Pocatello to build a permanent display site, but the property reverted back to the city after the group couldn’t raise funds to build.

The association’s past inductees have ranged from Sacajawea to Pizza Hut of Idaho.

“I’m so thrilled that we’re getting media attention, but I wish it was positive,” said Idaho State Controller Donna Jones, a board member. She noted that the board approved the entire slate of inductees as a group last March, before Craig’s troubles began. “That decision was made way back in March, so absolutely before,” Jones said. “And it is for his contribution, 27 years.”

Political scientist Jim Weatherby, an emeritus professor at Boise State University, said, “The Hall of Fame people are in a no-win situation.” If they withdrew their invitation to Craig, he said, they’d be ignoring the three decades of public service they agreed last March to honor. By going forward, “The Hall of Fame will be known widely throughout the country for the next few days, not for good reasons, but because of Larry Craig, who rightly or wrongly is one of the more infamous politicians in our country. It’s hard for a lot of people to understand why a man in these circumstances would be elected to a hall of fame of anything.”

Between the award presentations, Leroy pondered the nature of fame, quoting everyone from Jean Jacques Rousseau (“Fame is but the breath of the people and that is often unwholesome”) to Brad Pitt (“Fame is a bitch, man”).

Craig told the crowd, “My fame of the last month I think I would liken to the definition Brad Pitt gave it.”

Klenck, a Payette resident, was inspired to launch Idaho’s Hall of Fame by her son’s idea that Payette High School should build a monument to a famous graduate, baseball legend Harmon Killebrew. She eventually expanded the idea into a statewide project to honor Idahoans who make their mark in the world in a variety of ways and coined the group’s slogan, “Idahoans on Loan to the World.”

The group held its first induction ceremony in 1995 in Pocatello, recognizing Killebrew, Sacajawea, and Idaho potato magnate J.R. Simplot, among others.

The organization stopped holding annual ceremonies after 2002, but revived this year with a new board of directors and plans for a big-splash induction ceremony. In addition to Craig, those honored included Idaho Gov. Butch Otter Lt. Gov. Jim Risch. But the biggest applause of the night came for a group honoree – the Boise State University football team.

Outside the ceremony, passersby wondered at all the cameras. Lynn Patterson, a former Boisean who now lives in Park City, Utah, said he didn’t think Craig should have been inducted. “I think he’s an embarrassment,” he said. “He should’ve just bowed out gracefully and let the thing die.”

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