Hey, I know him!

  • By DANIEL PERSON Bozeman Daily Chronicle Staff Writer
  • Oct 28, 2008

DEIRDRE EITEL/CHRONICLE Bozeman area resident Roy Garrigues, left, roomed for a year with John McCainin Florida in 1975-1976 before the presidential candidate became involved in politics. Kristin Taylor of Bozeman holds her dog Sadie in her lap Tuesday morning as she talks about the class she took from Barack Obama at the University of Chicago.

Those who have attended a Barack Obama event in Bozeman have probably heard Kristin Taylor’s story before.

In the mid-1990s, Taylor was a law student at the University of Chicago, where Obama taught constitutional law. She took a seminar course on racism and the law from the young professor, and was immediately struck by his ability to balance many ideas at once.

One fateful day that semester, Taylor met with Obama during his office hours to discuss the class. Afterward, she called her husband.

“You know my new professor with the funny name?” she remembers asking him. “He’s definitely going to be president some day.”

Taylor, 41, now lives in Bozeman with her husband and two children. She has been a tireless advocate for Obama throughout his 19-month candidacy.

Taylor is one of a small club of locals who know the presidential candidates by more than just their news sound-bites, legislative records and memoirs.

The Gallatin Valley is also home to a former roommate of John McCain’s and Obama’s sixth-grade teacher.

And while all their experiences with the presidential hopefuls are quite different, they share a passion to see their teacher, pupil or friend tapped for the Oval Office by the American people next Tuesday.

McCain’s roommate

Roy Garrigues said rooming with McCain gave him a different outlook on life.

The two men shared an apartment in Orange Park, Fla., between 1975 and 1976, shortly after McCain returned from Vietnam. McCain had been held as a prisoner of war for five-and-a-half years in Vietnam, during which he was subjected to harsh torture, enough to break a man’s soul, Garrigues said.

But the years as a POW had another effect on McCain, Garrigues said.

“He would always be so cheerful in the morning,” he recalled. “He would always be up and around and cheerful. I asked him why that was.”

When overseas, McCain told Garrigues, “I would wake up in the mornings and I would have tears in my eyes. I would be so thankful they hadn’t started beating me yet.”

Garrigues said that has stuck with him.

“To this day, when the alarm goes off, I get up and I have a half-way cheerful attitude, and I get going,” he said. “I never saw that guy hang around a feel sorry for himself.”

Obama’s teacher

Joan Marie Florence retired in 1996 from the private Punahou School in Honolulu, Hawaii, where she taught sixth-grade English. Florence, who now splits her time between Bozeman and Hawaii, recalled that in her second year at the school, a student entered her class who was especially memorable.

“There was something special about him. He was destined for greatness,” she said.

That was Obama. He went by Barry then, and Florence said many of the lessons young Barry learned at Punahou School define his campaign today.

Students “get plenty of practice expressing their feelings there,” she said.

Change was encouraged.

“That’s one of the big things about the school,” she said. It taught that “change is the only thing you can count on. Change is a positive force.”

Students also learned that, as graduates, they were expected to contribute to their society.

“An important thing Barack learned there is if you are lucky enough to have a quality education, it is your duty to give back,” she said.

Florence said she still has the yearbook from that year, which has a small note from Obama.

“You’re a cool teacher. Have a great summer. Love, B.O.,” it reads. Beside it is a smiley face with a ’fro n a self-portrait of sorts.

Pulling for their man

Florence said knowing what she does about Obama’s education, as well as how he has impressed those around him give her resounding confidence in the candidate.

“That boy’s got heart,” she said.

From his point of view, Garrigues said, McCain’s the man for the job. And knowing McCain personally only reinforces his conviction.

“I hate to say it, but even if he was a Democrat, I’d still be for John,” he said. “He’s my friend.”

Garrigues is also a veteran, having served in Vietnam, Somalia and Operation Desert Storm. He said veterans are going to come out strong for McCain, and doubts that recent polling has captured the extent of that vote.

“You can have attitudes about the economics of this and that, but it all come down to, we went through the crap together,” he said.

Taylor, who grew up New York, said all of her relatives were Hillary Clinton supporters in the Democratic primaries. She may have supported the New York senator, too, had it not been for that seminar she took with Professor Obama.

So, instead, she began fighting for the Illinois senator as soon as he announced his candidacy in February 2007.

Inevitably, the story of what she told her husband after meeting with Obama comes up, she said.

“I’ve literally told that story hundreds and hundreds of times,” Taylor said.

Daniel Person can be reached at or 582-2665.