Sue Wagner - Excerpt 6 Transcript
(Reno, Nevada; August 15, 2001)

VC: Well, one of the questions I've been asking everybody is, would you consider Jean a mentor, an inspiration, did she teach you anything, did you learn anything from her? I don't know if that's actually valid in this situation, since you both sort of worked together and kind of set out paces for women in the same position going different ways.

SW: That is true, but you know, here was a woman who was extremely ethical, was very upfront, and I think did things the right way, so in that way she certainly was a mentor. She was very - She - She counseled me a lot in terms of what committees to select and what that would do for me or for the issues that I was interested in, and it turns out, you know, I got on the same committees she did, and that was just wow, because I was a Republican, she was a - at that time she was a Republican, maybe that was in the Senate that the political parties got very upset, they thought we were going to overthrow the committees. (SWagner6) You can't imagine what two or three women can do in a body like that then. Today that's probably not the case because you have many more women and I think that it's much more acceptable, but at that time, you know, I mean, it was like we were going to throw a bomb or we were plotting something if we talked to each other in the restroom. The only good thing about having so few women was we had the whole restrooms to ourselves to, you know, plot and plan, just like they thought we were doing, (SWagner6 )but, you know, one of the best memories I have of Jean is our - which is just a personal thing, was our trip to Tonopah, and Cliff Young - I had been National President of the Wildlife Federation and had a terrific interest in national forests and parks and so on, and so he arranged this trip for only senators, nobody else, no spouses, no nothing, and - but Jean was the only woman, and so they let her take somebody with her, so she chose me, and it was a terrific experience. Not only was I not able to walk for about three days, being on a horse for, like, eight hours, and the last time I'd done that was as a seven-year-old going around on a little pony at a fair or something, but we - we had a tent and nobody else did because, you know, we were women, but we didn't complain, it was better - it wasn't quite equal, but it was better, and you got to know, like, Senator Floyd Lamb and all of these people in a much different way, and that is the best thing that I think anybody could do, because it breaks down all those barriers and you're out there, you're dirty, you're cooking together, and you're, you know, I fell off the horse and Floyd Lamb always told this story, how he brought me back to life, and (laughing) -