BANNED FROM THE WHITE HOUSE

In May of 1990, Studibert invited Fred and I to attend the dedication of the Filo Farnsworth statue at the National Capitol Building Rotunda. Interestingly enough, Fred was a registered Democrat. Of course we would attend, and there we were – with the rich and famous Utah Republicans – pretending to be one of them – again. I made good use of my time while I was in D.C., and met with representatives of the Dept. of Commerce, Defense, and the Pentagon. The group of people all fit on one bus, and despite all my own meetings, I also attended and was a witness to a couple of meetings in The White House that began to reveal the true nature of Studibert.

The first meeting was a scheduled lunch in The White House, but somehow that got delayed. Our bus seemed to drive around endlessly all over the city. Studibert was chasing the bus in a smaller car. We’d get somewhere and park and wait. We’d then see Studibert appear, wave to Frank who’d get off the bus and chit-chat with him, get back on, and around in circles we’d go again. We finally landed at the White House visitors’ entrance to the Annex building, and we were ushered in to a waiting area.

We were then herded into a briefing room in the Annex building, where we were each given a box of Presidential M&M’s. Jon Huntsman, Jr. gave us a briefing on his specialty – The Pacific Rim. Jon Huntsman, Jr. was the son of Jon Huntsman, Sr. (a Utah billionaire who made his fortune in chemicals; inventing the Styrofoam box that Big-Macs used to be housed in). The Huntsman’s’ were related to my neighbors, the former Mayor of Palo Alto, CA., David B. Haight (Mrs. Huntsman, Sr.’s father), and Jon Jr. is the current Governor of Utah (at this posting).

So I listened attentively, but the soothing sound of Jon Jr.'s voice, and my lack of sleep the night before found my head bobbing in hopes of getting in a few “zzzzzz’s.” It is here that I discovered the great principle, that it is almost impossible to fall asleep while chewing. I put one M&M in my mouth and chewed. Then another – and I was able to ration them all out until the end of the briefing – and I didn’t fall asleep!

Afterwards, we were shuttled into the Indian Treaty Room of the Annex. I had never been there before, and was quite excited to see the beautiful paintings and mosaic floors, etc.. We were milling around when suddenly a bunch of box lunches appeared, and we sat on any available chair in the room -- and that was our “White House” lunch. Studibert was curiously absent, but Frank and the Republican Fund-raiser for Utah (I’ll call him Bill) was there handing out the lunches. Then another Utah White House staffer came and spoke to us about something . . .

I can’t remember who it was or what he talked about, but the man apologized for not knowing sooner that he needed to address us, and was confident that since we were all Utahan’s we would forgive him. We did, and he was very nice. We finished our lunches, and then we were ushered out of the Annex Building. We drove around the town for a little while longer, and finally it was time to dedicate the statue of F. Farnsworth.

Because we had a lot of free time to visit with one another and were able to get better acquainted, I offered to help out with whatever Bill needed to get done. We got to be good friends, and eventually then, and also later back home in Utah, Bill told me that Studibert was not allowed within 100 feet of the White House. Bill never told me why (I don’t think even he knew), but that’s why the lunch fell through, and Studibert was not present at our briefings at The White House. This seemed very curious to me, but later, as I began to add things up, the reason for his banishment became clear to me.