Come, Mr. Tally Man

University of Arkansas chancellor John White got all choked up, literally, recently while introducing Gov. Mike Huckabee at a luncheon.

White was speaking at the Northwest Arkansas Regional Chamber Day on Jan. 15 at the North Little Rock Riverfront Hilton. Members of the Springdale, Rogers and Siloam Springs leadership classes, chamber members from area towns, and state representatives from the Third District — David Bisbee, Jim Bob Duggar, David Hausam, Kim Hendren, Jim Holt and Bill Pritchard — attended the luncheon.

As he began his long, glowing introduction of Huckabee, White reached under the lectern, where he had stashed a sack. He pulled out a bunch of bananas, flopping them on the lectern. The audience roared in laughter with White’s lighthearted jab at Huckabee for his remarks last year on a New York radio show comparing Arkansas’ election practices to those of a banana republic.

Even Huckabee chuckled.

White took a bite out of one banana and, shortly afterward, began getting choked, having to stop and drink water.

When Huckabee was finally introduced, he led the audience in the song, “Yes, We Have No Bananas.” He then said he believed it was divine intervention that White “ended up choking on his own banana during his introduction of me.”