Roll Call Article | By Jackie Wang
Rep. Russ Fulcher became agriculture secretary when he was just 17 years old — at Boys Nation, that is.
The Idaho Republican first came to D.C. in the summer of 1979, after finishing the Boys State program back home. He spent a week learning about politics, building a mock government and rising through the ranks. The highlight, he said, was laying a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, even if it meant frantically looking for a suit.
He ultimately borrowed one too large for his frame: “That’s what stuck in my mind, because I didn’t bring one,” he says.
Later, he returned to intern for then-Sen. Jim McClure, who was working to shore up political power for the West as a “sagebrush rebel” and chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
“He gained some respect because his colleagues knew that he wasn’t going to attack them on a public basis. Any confrontation would be in private. And I try to adopt that same thing,” Fulcher says.
Fulcher may not agree with McClure’s signature push to create the Hells Canyon National Recreation Area. “It was really a bad mistake,” he says. “We have so much land that’s locked up, millions of acres, and so to lock up more of it?
“But I don’t think there’s any way you could have known that at the time,” Fulcher adds. “And other than that, he did pretty good. … I remember him talking about, you know, people have no concept of public lands until they come to the West. And he’s right.”
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