Teaching history is still thrill for Utah lawmaker

WASHINGTON — You can apparently send a teacher to Congress, but you can never quite take the teacher out of the congressman.

U.S. Rep. Rob Bishop, who spent 28 years teaching U.S. history and government to Box Elder High students before being elected two years ago as a Republican from Utah's 1st District, was on unofficial hiatus from his official duties during a House break.

"I'm teaching government and U.S. history," he grinned, "and there's no better place in the world to do it" than the nation's capital.

And he gets to keep his $158,100-a-year day job, too.

Bishop has spent the break teaching the finer points of history and government to 12 hand-selected Utah high school students from five schools (all located in the 1st District, of course) who are being schooled by the freshman congressman under the auspices of Close Up, a national nonprofit program that exposes teenagers to American government.

Bishop not only signed on as a volunteer teacher, but he then went out and squeezed several 1st District businesses to donate money to pay most of the $1,500 cost for each student to participate.

Last August, he sent out letters to every school in his district soliciting student applications. Essay contests were held, and Bishop chose the winners. He even picked them up at the airport and took those who wanted to go to church the next day.

Close Up officials were impressed that a congressman would actually take the time to be a teacher. They even asked Bishop if another group of kids from California and a second group from northern Utah could tag along. And by the time Bishop swirled into the Capitol, his entourage had swelled to more than 50.

"See that stain?" he said as the kids crowded closer for a view of the red splotch on the marble steps. "That's blood."

Once he has their attention, he weaves a yarn about a congressman having an affair, a journalist who exposed it and a murder of revenge that left the marble indelibly stained in blood. It's a story quite familiar on Capitol Hill.

"Only the story isn't true," he said. "It's just imperfection in the marble."

The teenagers nod and murmur in satisfaction at a popular myth debunked.

Bishop then leads them to an empty House floor, seats them all at the lawmakers' desks and lectures for a half hour on the separation of powers and duties of Congress. Remarkably, no one falls asleep, and most are laughing at his jokes.

"I give them just enough of the bizarre to keep things interesting," Bishop explains, "and maybe I can instill the spirit of American history in the process."

The teenagers seem to agree.