'First lad' happy in new digs

If you're thinking Myron Walker isn't down with his wife being governor in what could be their wild and free golden years, if you think he'd rather be on a cruise ship, or playing golf in Scotland, or touring castles in Europe, or rocking on the front porch while sipping lemonade, well, think again.

"I'm really enjoying this," says Utah's "first lad" as he sits in the parlor of the 32-room home he and his wife moved into last fall when then-Gov. Mike Leavitt left for Washington, D.C., to head up the EPA and Lt. Gov. Olene Walker became Utah's chief executive.

"It's quite a place," says Myron of Utah's century-old governor's mansion on South Temple Street in Salt Lake City. "Want to look around?"

The governor's husband squeezes his 6-foot-3 frame into the building's coffin-size elevator — the only small thing in the mansion — for a trip to the basement. "You should try this for the experience," he says, using words that seem to echo his sentiment about being thrust into something he didn't really consider as a retirement option back when he was part owner and CEO of a successful company that distributed potato chips, popcorn and cheese puffs.

Who'd have known that, at age 75, with the business sold, with their pension in place, with seven children grown and married and with 25 grandchildren, Myron and Olene Walker would be the state's first couple?

They're doing a lot of traveling all right, now that Myron is retired, but it's not with a tour company to see the fall colors in New England or the white cliffs of Dover. It's to the White House to have dinner with the country's other governors and the president of the United States.

Myron's memories of that White House visit in February extend past the formal dinner with the governors and President Bush to the next day, when he joined the other first spouses for lunch with first lady Laura Bush in the Bush's personal living quarters. There, he sat at a table with nine governor's wives.

"Some people might think that would be awkward," he says. "But I sat there and enjoyed it. It was quite an opportunity."

The tables have flip-flopped for Myron and Olene, whose next wedding anniversary will be their 50th. Myron remembers back a half-century to when he was enrolled in Harvard Business School and there were no women in his class.