Wake Forest Magazine September 2003 - Past Issues - Wake Forest ...

Mary Easley with son Michael (left) and husband, N.C. Governor Mike Easley“It’s busy,” she said. “I get up at six, get ready and go towork at my teaching job. Sometimes I change into my FirstLady outfit in my office and I hop in the car and come toa school or go make a speech.Then I go home and changeagain and I have dinner with my son Michael (nineteen)and the governor.”Easley said her main role as First Lady is acting as an“extra set of eyes and ears” for her husband. By working andrunning errands, she maintains a connection with NorthCarolinians. “One does not want to become divorced fromlife,” she said. “When you’re in that grocery line peeking atthe National Enquirer and listening to people around youtalk, you have a real sense of what’s on their mind andwhat’s bugging them.You know whether somebody has ajob or whether or not their daughter was just laid off.“I try to soak all that in and convey it when I should tohim in an honest unbiased way. He can do with that raw datawhat he chooses. Having that kind of information is a valuablething for him because he likes to see the big picture.”As an extra set of ears, Easley acts as a sounding boardfor the governor. She listens to a multitude of public policyand personal issues important to his administration. On agiven day, she might hear about anything from the budgetand the environment to education and execution. Easleytackles issues of her own, making her a distinguished publicservant and a policy maker. As First Lady, she works to linkcommunity resources to schools, to boost immunizationamong immigrants, to recruit teachers and to fight underagedrinking—and she does it with the same exuberance shebrought to Wake Forest.She will bring the last issue, underage drinking, back to campusthis October with a symposium on alcohol (see related story,page 6). It will be the first gathering in the state with nationallyrecognized experts from the National Institutes of Health andpresidents and legal staff from the state’s universities.“For me, the issues that I have an interest in help me to seewhere I’ve been and where I’m going,” Easley said. “I can link upin partnership with people like President Hearn in order tomove forward with those issues so that we can expand them sufficientlyto help North Carolinians.”September 2003 49