Nany Evans oral history.indd - Washington Secretary of State

Hughes: The $64,000 question is whether you got any special allowance from the
Republican National Committee, like Sarah Palin, when Dan was the keynoter?
Evans: No, no, no…
Hughes: No clothing allowance?
Evans: No, no. No money for clothes. I can remember once when mini-skirts were
everywhere. So that was when?
Hughes: 1968.
Evans: But I didn’t like mini-skirts. And Dan hated them because he’d stand up at the
head table of whatever, giving a speech, and he’d say, “It’s terrible. You don’t know where
to look because women, and even older women sometimes, are sitting in a way that they
shouldn’t be sitting” in mini-skirts that were riding up and what have you. But it wasn’t for
me. But sometimes I did sort of (wear a shorter skirt) because you feel old if it’s down here
(motioning to below the knees). So I was wearing one sort of just above the knee. And
my picture was taken and it was in the paper. I was at the Mansion greeting somebody.
And a man – I know it was a man – sent it back and drew a line where my skirt line should
be. And he said, “This is where your skirt should come to. Not up to where it is. And it’s
shameful that the governor’s wife would wear that.” And most women were up to here,
you know. So I wasn’t that immodest.
Hughes: The ’68 convention is in Miami, isn’t it?
Evans: This is in Miami, and I’m not a fan of Miami. But there was a lot of stuff going on. It
was just crowds, crowds, crowds. And Dan gave his speech way too late at night. We had
been sitting in this hot room all day long with the speeches droning on and on and on. The
speech was delayed for West Coast audiences, so the conventioneers were tired, restless and
noisy. Actually, it was a good speech to the television audience, but in the convention hall
itself people were talking and it was noisy. (Editor’s note: There were 17,000 people in the
Convention Hall.) And I’m sitting there and thinking, “Be quiet and listen!” It was a speech
that was praised by a lot of people, a lot of the press – the national press. He got a lot of
good press on it. But the local press (got a different impression) because on TV they’d shoot
around the room to show the women with these silly hats on doing silly things. Then they’d
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