booth gardner - Washington Secretary of State

“Utterly depressed and scared,” Booth went home and pulled the covers up to his
chin. The more he learned about Parkinson’s the worse his anxiety grew. It was the ultimate
curve ball. He was no longer in control. Dopamine, the naturally occurring drug that had
seldom let him down, was being depleted by a maliciously degenerative disease. Parkinson’s
struck him as a living nightmare – worse than cancer. “I was afraid I’d be a stumbling,
stuttering, blank-eyed, stiff-legged human train wreck – someone who couldn’t tie his own
shoes and needed a road map to find the bathroom,” bouncing off the walls en route.
Two neurologists in Geneva confirmed the diagnosis and prescribed medication.
They told him it was a disease with many manifestations. Maybe he’d be lucky. Researchers
were exploring new treatments.
Through a mutual friend, he met an attractive young woman from Texas who was
vacationing in Europe. Cynthia Perkins was 23 years his junior, slender and vivacious. She
worked in public relations and marketing. “He was very charming, and very humble, given
his accomplishments,” Cynthia says. “I was struck by his humility and his interest in other
people.” They exchanged e-mails and phone calls. They got together when he made a
trip back to the states, and she made another trip to Geneva. “When they got him on the
correct medications, the symptoms of Parkinson’s were pretty well controlled,” she recalls,
and he was feeling upbeat. They just clicked. The miles that divided Jean and Booth grew
longer. He says Cynthia was so caring, so full of life and funny that it boosted his spirits.
“She was amazing.” He told himself that he would learn everything there was to know
about Parkinson’s and fight it with all his emotional and financial resources. In helping
himself, he could help thousands of others – maybe even find a cure. What a legacy that
would be, he thought.
* * *
In the spring of 1996, however, it was clear to Gardner that he was no longer up to
being trade ambassador. Others noticed, too. Word filtered back to Kantor that something
was wrong with Booth. In Washington State, a seemingly farfetched rumor surfaced:
Gardner’s hat was in the ring to become superintendent of the 2,000-student Eatonville
School District, 30 miles southeast of Tacoma in the foothills of Mount Rainier. Two weeks
later he jetted in from Geneva to interview for the job. “This is something I’ve always
wanted to do,” he told reporters. “If I hadn’t been in politics, I would have been in school
work, either as a coach or teacher. …I think it would be a lot of fun. I like working with kids
in their formative years.”
A survey found that the former governor was the first choice of 72 percent of the
district’s teachers. If they didn’t hire him, “we will be the laughingstock of the state for
having missed this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” said one. Eatonville’s weekly newspaper
added pages to handle the deluge of letters to the editor. The community hotly debated
whether Gardner was a rich-guy dilettante – and a liberal one at that, pro-choice and a
supporter of gay rights – or a high-profile innovator with the potential to transform the
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