Oral History Program George Garwood Interviewed by Patrick Murphy 6 April 2016 Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah George Garwood Interviewed by Patrick Murphy 6 April 2016 Copyright © 2023 by Weber State University, Stewart Library Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. 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These oral history assignments were created to help Weber State students learn the value and importance of recording public history and to benefit the expansion of the Weber State oral history collections. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management This work is the property of the Weber State University, Stewart Library Oral History Program. It may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching and personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Garwood, George, an oral history by Patrick Murphy, 6 April 2016, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, Special Collections and University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii George Garwood Circa 2016 Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with George Garwood, conducted on April 6, 2016, in his home, by Patrick Murphy. George discusses his life and his experiences as a minority leader in Northern Utah. PM: This is an oral history interview with Mr. George Garwood conducted by Patrick Murphy on April 6, 2016 in Mr. Garwood’s home. The time is approximately 4:20 PM. Please start by telling us about your background, your childhood, teen years, where you grew up, hobbies, family values, education, etc. GG: I was born in St. Louis, Missouri. My parents had nine children—seven boys and two girls. In reality, I am the oldest of the second family. My mother became a widow with five children at the age of 29. I spent my first 15 years of my life in St. Louis until my family moved to Tooele, Utah. That’s where I kind of got involved in things. Coming from a large family—I was just joking with one of my siblings yesterday that my mother had nine children in four different decades. I had older siblings that were old enough to be my parents, some of them. I went to elementary school in St. Louis and lived in a predominantly Black neighborhood. Went to junior high—or middle school, we had middle schools there. In 1971, my parents moved to Tooele, Utah, and that's how I ended up here in Utah. I graduated from Tooele High School and then went to school at Utah State University. I then went on a mission to Oakland, California. I moved down to the Ogden area in 1978. I decided I liked it here. Then I left on my mission, and when I came home, I decided to build a home in the very same area I left from. PM: What are some of your hobbies? 1 GG: I love to sing, and for the last six years, I have been a member of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. I sang for 18 years with the Salt Lake Symphonic Choir, and in college, I sang in different choirs and groups. I do a lot of solo work. I always sing at funerals, weddings, whatever—I do a lot of that. I would say in the last few years, I just love being at home, working in my yard, and just having fun. PM What experiences did you have in childhood, teen years, adult years that led you to believe that you were or could be a leader? GG: That’s kind of a hard question because in high school, I was a sophomore class president. Then my senior year in high school, I was the student court judge. So I was always out there, kind of. I just enjoyed being around people and serving with people and helping people. PM: At what point did you decide to run for mayor of South Ogden? GG: I think it was 1995, and I had built this home that I am in in 1983. I had been a resident of South Ogden for quite a while. I came home, was working in Salt Lake at the time, and there was a note on my front door that said that there was a public hearing at South Ogden City about a housing project that they were going to build. I went down to the meeting and I was one of probably 150 people. I stood up and I spoke about the project and how it was going to impact our community. The city council decided to delay the project, and then they formed a committee that they wanted to work with the developer to develop the property that he owned. When it came time for city council races, several members of the committee said, “You know, George, you should run for office.” 2 I said, “I am just too busy. I don't have time to get involved in local government and working with the city and stuff.” Well, they kept after me, and I decided to run, so I ran. That was in 1995, I ran for city council. I literally walked every mile of South Ogden. Every waking hour of the day that I could, I would go out and I was campaigning. I only spent my first election, $400 or $500 to get elected. I only had four big signs and maybe 20-yard signs, and I won the third seat on the city council by 34 votes. There were seven people that were running for three vacant seats. I won and I got into politics. I can see where there were a lot of—I couldn't say it was corruption—but I could see where people just were not being informed. They didn’t know what was going on. I think my campaign slogan was, ‘The People's Choice,’ or something. I got in there, and in those days in South Ogden, there was a real battle with the city council and the residents on a trail that was supposed to be down by the Birch Creek. When they developed all that land on the other side of Harrison, those homeowners had to pay a $600 or $700 impact fee so that they could develop the Birch Creek walkway and the trail there. Well, for some reason they couldn't find the document, and there was no evidence that it was ever passed in the open public meeting. That's how I got involved there to try to settle that. I really only thought that I would be on the city council. I thought, “Well I'll run for two terms, serve eight years, and then I’ll leave and I’ve done my service.” 3 Well, I was there for six years. Then right at my sixth year, several of the council members said, “Hey, you should run for mayor.” I thought, “Oh, I don't know if I want to be mayor.” Then I ran for mayor, and I was the first African-American mayor in the state of Utah, and I won with more than 75% percent of the vote. PM: What are your core values? How have they influenced your leadership experiences and abilities? GG: I can remember, at a very young age, my mother said to me something that her grandparents had said to her, and that was, “There was no such word as ‘can't’.” If you want to do it, you can do it. I’ve always been a hard worker. I've worked since I was 16 years old, and I set goals for myself. I said to myself early on in life that I wanted to be retired by the time I was 55. I retired six months after my 56th birthday. I think that people have to be goal-oriented. I think you have to help yourself. So many people, I think, in today's society, they're looking for a handout. There's nothing bad about that, but you need to kind of help yourself and raise yourself up. I think people need to be honest. I think one of the reasons why I was so successful in South Ogden—especially as mayor—is that I was honest with people and I listened to them. I had a lot of people who would come up to me and say, “You know, Mr. Garwood, I may not agree with you, but I know that when I am talking, that you’re listening.” I think that it is very important that we listen to people because we need to address their concerns. 4 I would try to explain to people—I can remember in one instance when I was on the city council, just a city council member, South Ogden has about five or six parks, and the parks were all in disrepair—playground equipment broken, and they weren't getting taken care of, just the minimal maintenance. One of my goals on the city council was to improve our parks. I talked with the park director, and I said, “I want you to come up with a plan on how we could upgrade our parks in a six-year period. We do like one park a year, and we would allocate money for that park.” Well, it got on the agenda, went to the council, and you know, "Oh, we don't have money for parks. We don't have money for all this equipment." I spoke up and said, “Well, then, why don't we sell them, because all they are is a liability.” All of a sudden, the council said, “Okay.” I think I asked for $20,000-$25,000 a year; we figured it would help us upgrade one park at a time. We did it, and it made people feel good, because people don't mind paying taxes if they see they are getting something for it. When people came to our parks, none of our parks had signs, so we got nice signs for the parks. We started keeping them up better, and all of a sudden, people were looking. "This is where my money goes." When I was mayor, I was the president of the Utah League of Cities and Towns, and I was on their board for probably seven years. A slogan that we had when I was president of the Utah League that we took stateside to every city in the state of Utah was, ‘Getting Your Money's Worth’. We actually got cities to talk 5 to people about where their money was going. When there were projects going on in the community, you had a sign that says, ‘Getting Your Money's Worth’. People knew, and it had the city’s name on it. People knew where their money was going. You just didn't see someone out digging in the road or something. You said, "Oh, that's my tax money at work." PM: Name a person who has had a tremendous impact on you as a leader, maybe someone who has been a mentor to you. Why and how did this person impact your life generally, and your leadership abilities specifically? GG: I think I would have to say the person, especially in my political life that has influenced me, has been Bill Loos. Bill lives here in the neighborhood. We became friends—I think they moved in about 21, 22 years ago. It was funny’ he was working with the Atlantic Olympics. I got to know him through church and we were neighbors, and his kids were in my Scout troop, so we would sit and talk because he was kind of active in the political circle. He said, “George, why don't you run for city council?” When I decided to run for council, him, his family, and his kids would come out and help a little bit. Especially when I ran for mayor, they came out and helped me. I remember his youngest son was out campaigning with me one day, and he was handing out a flyer, and somebody stopped him and said, "Why should I vote for this guy?” He says, "Well, because he's my friend.” This little 10 or 11-year-old boy is out passing out flyers. 6 As a matter of fact, just last week, Bill asked me, "Are you thinking about getting back into politics?” I said, “Well, I don’t know.” He believes I would be good. PM: What do you see as the biggest challenges of being a minority leader in Northern Utah, which is predominantly white? What do you do to overcome these challenges? GG: I remember when I was running for mayor and I was out campaigning, and I'd had the Salt Lake Tribune contact me, and they said "Mr. Garwood, do you realize that if you win the mayor's office in South Ogden, you will be the first African-American mayor in the history of the state?” I said, “Well… I probably did, I thought of it.” Then they said, “We want to do a story on it.” When we did the story, I said to them, “I don't mind doing the story, but I don't want it to be about me being Black. People can see that; that is something that is very visible. I want people to see why it’s so important that we elect this person. What is it that he has? What characteristics does he have that are going to benefit us in our community?” We did the angle on the first Black candidate for mayor in South Ogden, but we said, “These are the things that he has accomplished. This is why we feel that he would be a good candidate.” I remember one day when I was out campaigning, I was over in the Club Heights area. I knocked on this lady's door, and I would knock on peoples’ doors and I would say, “Hey, I'm George Garwood running for mayor of South Ogden, 7 and I'm here to encourage you to get out and vote.” Now, I never told people, “I want your vote,” they know that I want their vote because that's why I'm there. This lady looked at me, and she said, “You know what? I'm voting for you.” I said “Oh?” She says, “Because I had read about you in the paper.” She was Jewish, and she says, “When we renovated our synagogue, you were the only elected official that showed up for the dedication.” I was like that, I wanted to make sure that our community was all inclusive. You can't say, this is the Black area, the white area, the LDS, or the Protestants, or the Catholics. When you're in elected office, you look at the community as a whole. There may be things that, because of religious belief, you may have a difference of opinion, but you have to do what’s best for everybody, or try to do what’s best for everybody. PM: What advice would you give emerging young minority leaders in order to be successful? GG: I would say be a hard worker. Don't go out and use your race or color to say, “You should elect me because I'm Black,” or, “You should elect me because I'm LDS.” You need to have your credentials. You need to make sure that people understand and have a true belief in what you’re doing, that you’re not out there to be self-serving. I think so many of the politicians of today are self-serving, “What's in it for me?” I served on numerous boards while I was involved in local 8 government, and I can remember, you would get mayors or councilmen that would say, “What is in it for me?” One day I was in a meeting and I said, “You know what? My community is not just South Ogden. My community is North Ogden, Hopper, Plan City, Uintah. That’s my community. Just because I am elected to represent the people in South Ogden doesn't mean that those other communities don't affect me.” What happens in those communities also can have an impact on what goes on in South Ogden. PM: What other insights can you share about being a minority leader in Northern Utah? GG: I'm already visible, and I think most minorities—people can look at you most of the time and tell you are from someplace different. I would say, be involved in your community. Know what is going on in your community. Know what the issues are. Know what people need and what they want. A lot of times, it’s just being open and honest with people and explaining. If people have an issue, and you say, “We can't do it,” you need to be able to explain how and why you can’t do it. You need to be more. You need to have your ear to what is going on in the community, and you need to get involved early on. PM: As a member of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, you are also a leader. What sort of insights do you have as a minority in that choir? GG: Mack Wilberg always says that the best choir members are those that come and sing and go home. When you are dealing with 360+ people, and trying to put together a weekly program for about 27 minutes of Music and the Spoken 9 Word, you can't always raise your hand and ask questions, or you’ll be there all night. Just being a good singer, being a good choir member, being able to listen to direction, and then following direction. In the choir this last November, I am one of the hosts on Music and the Spoken Word. So, on Sunday mornings, between the run through and the broadcast, I come out and tell people a little bit about the choir and the history of the Tabernacle. I think it has been really good. I get people who recognize me all the time from being on TV with the choir, since there are so few of us. PM: Well, thank you for sharing your memories with us and I appreciate you letting me into your house to interview you. GG: You're welcome. 10