Volunteer’s service nets face-to-face with Bush
Posted on Tuesday, July 1, 2008
For days, Robbie Powell has had trouble getting to sleep. President Bush will be in Little Rock today, and that’s making the 12-year-old Conway resident a little uneasy.
But he’s not concerned with poll numbers or what Bush might say at an afternoon discussion about the housing crisis. And he isn’t overly concerned about how much Bush will raise for the state Republican Party at a closed Little Rock fundraiser.
Powell is fretting over what to say when he meets the commander-in-chief. Because, unlike his jealous friends, he gets to meet the president. In person.
“I’ve told a few of them,” he said Monday. “I’ll get a ‘You’re joking.’ Then I’ll say, ‘No.’ And they’ll be like, Awesome. ’” More than 400, 000 have received the President’s Volunteer Service Award. But Powell gets to join the 600 or so — including a Springdale woman last October — who’ve actually had the honor presidentially bestowed.
Powell will be recognized for raising awareness and nearly $ 2, 000 for a rare neurological disorder that features abnormal iron deposits in the brain. The disease, Neurodegeneration with Brain Iron Accumulation, killed his friend, Ben Patterson, in August. Powell sold $ 3 silicone bracelets to honor Patterson and fight the disorder.
Powell’s visit with the president will be brief. Bush often arranges the quick ceremonies during fundraising trips. Bush also plans to visit a North Little Rock counseling agency before a $ 150-per-ticket fundraiser at the home of Little Rock beer distributor George O’Connor.
At the Family Service Agency, Bush will meet with troubled homeowners and learn about services that have helped them avoid foreclosure or buy a first home, agency director Charles Deville Jr. said. The preparations have been a little hectic.
One employee, noting his light workday on Monday, asked for the day off. But it wasn’t the best timing.
“I said, well, I’m getting a lot of calls from the press and trying to handle everything. It’d be good if you’d come in and help kind of spruce it up, ’” Deville said.
But, for all the excitement, the day mostly is set aside for politics.
Bush will arrive in Little Rock after a Jackson, Miss., fundraiser for a Senate candidate there. He hopes to do well for Natural State Republicans, too, even if none of them are challenging the state’s Democratic congressmen this year. The lone Republican in the state’s congressional delegation, John Boozman, has no Democratic opposition.
Like Americans across the country, Arkansans have cooled to Bush. The state backed him in 2000 and 2004. But a Rasmussen poll of 500 likely Arkansas voters taken June 12 reported that about 31 percent say he’s doing a “good” or “excellent” job.
Says a state Democratic Party spokesman: “If the Republican Party of Arkansas thinks that President Bush is the best choice to represent where they want to take the country, that’s their decision.” Bush has proved an effective fundraiser. The Republican National Committee says he’s raised about $ 67 million by headlining 29 events this year alone.
State party Chairman Dennis Milligan wasn’t making predictions for the Little Rock event, but he figures “several hundred” donors will be at O’Connor’s home.
“The response has been tremendous,” Milligan said. “This president is still a popular president in Arkansas.” Sloan Powell, Robbie’s mother, preferred to keep her family’s political leanings a secret. Her son will walk away with a memory of a lifetime, and she said that’s what’s most important.
“Regardless of how you feel one way or the other, it’s an honor to get to meet the president,” she said.
And maybe the cause of a minor anxiety attack.
“All this stuff has been racing through my mind,” Robbie Powell said before considering past celebrity run-ins: “The biggest I’ve met so far is the mayor of Conway.”
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