A-6 • March 22, 2017 • Farragut Shopper news
If I lived in the White House By Kip Oswald When I was in second grade, I remember saying I wanted to be president of the United States when I grew up. After reading about all the First Kids, Kip I should have said I wanted Mom to be president so I could be a First Kid. Being a kid in the White House sounds like the most fun I can possibly dream about. Imagine a house with 132 rooms and 35 bathrooms! It also has 28 fireplaces, eight staircases and three elevators! Since Mom hates to cook, I told her about the five full-time chefs to cook all the meals. She could have as many as 140 guests at one time, which would definitely cover all our family and friends. Of course, if she were president, I am sure more family and friends would come around! Being that huge, it is no wonder the White House was called the President’s Palace and the Executive Mansion before it was given the name White House in 1901. The White House has so many activities for the president’s family and guests that you would never have to leave the property. The White House has a tennis court that was first built in 1902 behind the West Wing but was moved to the west side of the South Lawn in 1909. There is a heated indoor swimming pool built in 1933 for Franklin D. Roosevelt. He
also built a movie theater in 1942 inside a coatroom where the president and his guests watch first-run movies. My family would never leave the house if we lived there because we are always at the movies or watching Netflix. In 1947, bowling lanes were built as a birthday present for President Harry Truman. President Dwight Eisenhower installed a putting green in 1954, and in 1975 an in-ground outdoor swimming pool was built on the grounds. A quarter-mile jogging track was installed around the south drive in 1993 by President Bill Clinton because when he jogged outside the White House, it disrupted Washington traffic. Oh, the games my friends and I could play in that house! I was telling my sister, Kinzy, about the size of the White House. She commented how cool it would be to have a prom there, and then I found that President Gerald Ford actually allowed his daughter to have her high school prom in the White House. Now that is amazing! I read that ever since John Adams, the first president to live in the White House, moved into the house, each president has been able to make his own changes to the house. Each First Family decorates the house how they want and decides how they want to receive visitors. Over the next months, we will learn some of the fun facts and interesting tidbits I have found on each of our presidents. Send comments to oswaldsworldtn@gmail. com
Boyd looks back and ahead at campaign kickoff By Betsy Pickle Randy Boyd was in the favorite-son zone when he visited New Hopewell Elementary School last Wednesday to kick off his campaign for governor. “I was famous for playing a tree in one of the school plays,” he quipped to the crowd of family, friends, wellwishers and media. The school is “an important part of my personal history. If I’m elected governor I’ll be spending a lot of time supporting communities just like this across our state.” After the formal announcement, Boyd reminisced more for the Shopper. “I was the fastest guy in school, which meant nothing when I got to high school. I remember some great teachers. ... I think I was maybe a little fidgety back in those days, but they worked with me and believed in me. So I think it was a great experience because of the great teachers that I had.” Boyd, 57, went on to graduate from Doyle High School at 16 and UT at 19. “I guess I’ve always been a little impatient,” he said. “By the time I was 16, I realized I had taken all the classes I needed to take to graduate. The only reason to stick around for the last year was just to play sports, and I was OK but not that great, so it didn’t seem like a reason enough to hang around. “UT was a little different. I was paying my own way through college, and
you could get 22 (credit) hours for the same price as 14. So when you’re paying your own way and you’re cheap, you sign up for as many hours as you can get. And if you take 22 hours every quarter, you graduate early.” Boyd commuted from home in South Knoxville till he graduated, at which point he rented an apartment in West Knoxville. He eventually started Radio Systems Corp. and became one of the most successful businessowners in the state. In 2012, Gov. Bill Haslam talked Boyd into serving (unpaid) as a higher-education consultant for the state. He later served two years as commissioner of Economic and Community Development, resigning last month. Working in Nashville – with wife Jenny, their two grown sons and his rescued dachshund in Knoxville – was hard for Boyd. “One of the things I look forward to in this campaign is that Jenny gets to travel with me, and in most cases the dog will travel with me. When I get elected governor, we’ll share the same house together in Nashville. We’ll still come back to Knoxville to see our boys from time to time, but Nashville will be my home for that period of time.” In 2011, Jenny opened Boyd’s Jig & Reel in the Old City, and her husband says she doesn’t plan to desert it.
“Jenny’s plan is to continue to be there, at least on Tuesday nights,” he says. “That’s when they have oldtime jams. She loves being at the pub and playing with her friends, playing her fiddle. So that’s our compromise. Mondays and Tuesdays she’ll probably be in Knoxville, and then come over on Wednesday morning.”
Randy Boyd announces his candidacy for governor.
Scottish Rite supports speech-language services
Since 1990, the Knoxville Scottish Rite Foundation has provided funding to the UT Health Science Center Department of Audiology and Speech Pathology to support speech-language services provided to pediatric clients from birth to age 10 whose families qualify financially. This year’s donation was $25,000. Pictured are Dr. Ashley Harkrider, department chair; and representatives from the Scottish Rite Foundation: Robert B. Beam 33º, secretary; Robert T. Reed 33º, vice president; Robert D. Anderson 33º; and David A. Webb 32º, president.