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From DeSoto County to the White House
“I had a very regular job at a very fancy address,” Diane Hawks, former White House Deputy Director for Management told the crowd gathered for the DeSoto Council’s Annual Membership Luncheon. Hawks went on to describe the ordinary tasks her office was charged with, including scheduling West Wing tours and ordering office supplies for 450 staffers.
Some of the not-so-ordinary tasks included setting up “war rooms” with television sets for staffers during the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice John Roberts. In addition to setting up the war rooms, Hawks had to find a source to copy confidential documents at a moment’s notice, and she couldn’t just go to Kinko’s – the printer had to have security clearance as well. She also was involved in the purchase of workstations for the Continuation of Operations site, an undisclosed location where White House staff goes in case of a catastrophic event to keep the White House running.
One of the more unusual requests Hawks handled came at 6:30 p .m on a Wednesday evening. She was asked to provide 100 pairs of rubber boots in various sizes, to be on Air Force One by the following Saturday morning for the President to take on a tour of the Gulf Coast following Hurricane Katrina. Hawks frantically turned to Google, found a supplier, and had the boots on Air Force One in time.
Hawks also reminisced about the time she was trying to match the color of the rug in the Oval Office in order to make a commemorative bowl for visiting dignitaries. The President was away from the White House, so Hawks and another staffer took a color chart to the Oval Office to make sure the colors in the bowl matched those in the rug. As she was literally crawling around on her hands and knees, Hawks said she had one of those "aha" moments we all have when she realized, “I’ve come a long way from a dairy farm in Cockrum, Mississippi!”
The DeSoto Council is grateful for the memories Hawks shared and for her excellent representation of DeSoto County in our nation’s capital.