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.”
This interview has been edited and condensed.
Q: How did you get involved in Boys State?
A: I was a basketball player, and I had a plan: That’s how I was going to finance college, with a basketball scholarship. Quite frankly, I was doing pretty well at it, but junior year I had a bad injury.
I had to have surgery on a knee, and in order to keep my mind busy, my mother was trying to encourage me to get involved with other things. The Boys State program was sponsored by the American Legion, and we had two family friends — one, believe it or not, was a World War I vet, and the other was a World War II vet — and they came to the house to recruit me.
There were hundreds of boys from across the state, and from there, two of us were elected to go to Boys Nation. It was a life-changer for me. Up until then, I hadn’t had much of an interest in government at all.
Q: That’s when you first met McClure, when you were at the Capitol with Boys Nation?
A: He had to step out of a committee hearing in order to meet with us, but he was willing to do that. I was trying to think, what am I going to say to a United States senator?
I had a question in my mind about the oil embargo at the time from OPEC nations. I mean, some things never change, right? In ag states, one of the slogans of the day was, “We’ll trade you a bushel of grain for a barrel of oil.” So I asked him, “It’s a political slogan, but why not? They need grain. We need oil.” And I think he appreciated the fact that I had actually put some thought into a question, and he made a statement in passing to think about an internship someday.
Q: When did you take him up on that?
A: I graduated from undergrad in 1984, and I had started working at Micron. They’re a behemoth now, but at the time they were a startup. It was a brick building in the desert south of Boise, literally in the sagebrush, and they were hiring for night shift workers, which was perfect because I could go to school during the day.
I eventually transitioned into sales and marketing, and at the time there was a major conflict with Japan over trade. The American semiconductor industry was all but decimated, and the other companies in the U.S. that made DRAM, which is dynamic random-access memory, were getting out because the perception was nobody could compete.
But frankly, the costs of operating in Tokyo were more than Boise at the time, and so when we were losing money on every transaction, we knew there was something going on. And so we were trying to get the attention of our elected officials to say, look, we believe there’s a predatory pricing case here.
During a team meeting, the question was asked, “Does anyone know Jim McClure?” And you know, I’m wet behind the ears, and I said, “Yeah, I met him.” And then I wrote a letter to his office, mentioned the previous meeting and said I’d like to apply.
And so I took a leave from Micron, and I took an internship in the press office, and I did my best to try to keep the communication flowing and keep the issue of trade on the staff and the senator’s minds.
Q: How did that pan out?
A: I played a really small role, but the company was ultimately able to prove that to Senate staff, and consequently to the Department of Commerce, because that’s where the senator took it. Hearings were convened, and some of the Japanese suppliers were called in for testimony and all that kind of thing.
And so that triggered a worldwide shift in power for the electronics industry. I mean, to this day, Japan is very resilient and they’ve come back in other areas, but it’s not in the semiconductor arena anymore.
Q: What moments stand out to you from your intern days?
A: I thoroughly enjoyed it, and I met a ton of people that I’m still in touch with today. We did a lot of running. There was no email back then, so if Sen. McClure wanted to get a message to Rep. [George] Hansen, somebody needed to physically take that.
I once got a call from someone looking for the senator, and so I took the message from “Ron” and delivered it. And then the press secretary came in and said, “You know who you just delivered that message from?” I said, “Ron something.” And he said, “Yeah, Reagan.”
Q: How have things come full circle now that you’re a member?
A: I gave my first tour since 1985, because nobody else [other than members of Congress] could give tours during the shutdown.
I stopped in the main Rotunda and told a personal story. As a member during [the pandemic], I was actually here by myself very late one night, and I was also going through a personal struggle: I had cancer, I was doing chemotherapy. And I went through that Rotunda, and it’s got a different feel when it’s dimly lit and empty. When you hear your own footsteps, and then you stop to pause and you recognize where you are, it’s like hair standing up on the back of your neck. It just makes you realize what’s important.
I also realized the Rotunda was where they had triage for the Civil War soldiers, right? So I reminded people on the tour that we think we have it tough sometimes, but in that era, the surgery tool was a bone saw.
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