Tolbert: My Lunch With Jonathan Runnells

Great article by Rob Moritz  for a nice read on a slow news day about the retirement of Jonathan Runnells from the Secretary of State’s office.  He is the guy who has been in charge of setting up for almost any event at the state capitol for the last 27 years.  It goes without saying that he has personally witnessed more history than most of us could imagine. Moritz does an excellent job hitting the highlights.

I will share one memory I have of Runnells that I am sure he probably does not remember. I attended Boys State in 1997 after my junior year in high school.  In the article, he tells a memorable story for that year about a bunch of waitresses from Hooters that showed up and nearly caused a riot.  You can imagine the combination of several hundred 17 year old boys who had not been near a girl in a week and a handful of Hooters waitresses.

There also was some not-so-flattering coverage by local television stations during one Boys State visit to the Capitol when some waitresses with the restaurant chain Hooters visited, he said.

“That was actually kind of my fault,” Runnells laughed, adding that the person who was to entertain the visiting boys had asked if some women could hand out discount coupons for the restaurant.

“When they showed up, the girls were wearing blue jeans and t-shirts,” Runnells said. “I said that would be fine, so I turned around and walked off. They then turned around and stripped down into these little skin-tight outfits, orange hot pants with t-shorts with Hooters on them.

“I saw them just when the TV trucks are pulling up and they started filming the Hooters girls out there with the Boys Staters. I of course had to kind of put an end to that.

The entire episode lasted no more than 10 to 15 minutes, he said.

I will plead the fifth on any memory of this event, but I do recall some kindness from Runnells later that day.

I was elected an Associate Supreme Court Judge that year, which meant I had sort of a mock trial over in the Arkansas Supreme Court building adjacent to the capitol.  Somehow, whoever was in charge of the handful of us over at the justice building missed the time for the buses to leave taking everyone back to UCA.  So since it was lunch time and it would be a few hours before someone could come back and retrieve us, Runnells ended up being in charge.  He took us down to the basement and ate lunch with us in the state capitol cafeteria.

This might seem like a small thing, but for a small town high school kid eating lunch in the capitol cafeteria with someone from the Secretary of State’s office (for all I know he was practically the Secretary of State himself) I felt like the biggest shot in Arkansas.  I remember he sat and visited with us young kids about our week and about state government.

I am sure there are thousands who have similar memories of simple acts of kindness he has shown them over the years.  Thanks, Mr. Runnells!