Image is everything; WSU official says Idaho needs to dispel Aryan Nations' identity

Les Purce may live in Pullman, but the black administrator at Washington State University has his roots in Idaho. His mother is even named Idaho.

The third-generation Idahoan, believed to be the first black elected official in Idaho, served as a city councilman and mayor in his hometown of Pocatello.

So, the man born Thomas Leslie Purce gets understandably agitated when his home state gets linked with white supremacist groups such as the Aryan Nations.

"The biggest concern I have about the state I was raised in is the image people have that Idaho is a place where those people (Aryan Nations) can thrive," Purce said. "It is just the reverse."

The leaders of the state need to change that image and be able to respond to the changing demographics of our country, he said.

"That is so important if we're to be effective in the new millennium," Purce said. "It is key for companies that want to come to this state E to the state's economic security."

In a presentation last year at Hewlett-Packard in which the high-tech California company awarded its first distinguished leadership award in human rights, Purce reminded his audience that the return of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s targeted not only blacks, but also Catholics, Jews and other immigrants.

"It is essential that we recognize the ambivalence and the division that exists in this state and in our nation when it comes to issues of race, poverty, gender and other differences," he said.

That comes with a long-term commitment to education, he added.

"We must strengthen and increase the number of teachers of color, because education begins with our children," he said. "They are our future -- all of us -- black, white, brown and red."

Devotion to education: Purce, 52, has devoted his life to education. He is WSU's vice president of Extended University Affairs and its dean of Extended Academic Programs. Prior to coming to Pullman, he was executive vice president of Evergreen State College in Olympia.

Purce's maternal grandmother also was an educator. Birdie Thompson was half Creek Indian, born on the Muskogee Reservation in Oklahoma. She was adopted by an African-American family and attended Normal College in Missouri, one of the early black institutions opening after the Civil War. She met her husband, Tracy Thompson, in Missouri where she was teaching school.

In the early 1900s, the Thompsons followed the railroad West until they decided to settle at Arimo, Idaho. His grandfather, a horse breeder from Kentucky, was one of the West's few black "bronco busters." He rode the circuit until he was killed in a rodeo event in the 1930s.

Although his grandfather entered rodeos throughout the Northwest, his grandmother wasn't allowed to pursue her teaching career in Idaho.

Blacks kept from teaching: "Back in those days, blacks couldn't teach school unless the schools were segregated," Purce told a Blackfoot News reporter shortly after his election as Pocatello's mayor. "Black teachers for black students was the policy."

Such bias didn't scar the 12 Thompson children -- especially the youngest, appropriately named "Idaho." She met Purce's father, John Purce, at an air base in Pocatello.

"When my dad came here in 1942, much of Pocatello was segregated," Purce said. "Even in Chinese restaurants, blacks had to go to the back. My dad lost his taste for Oriental food."

Purce also remembered marathon drives from Pocatello to Virginia in the early 1950s.

"We couldn't stay in motels, so we drove it in two-and-a-half days," he said.

The Purce family lived in an area of Pocatello called the "Triangle," home to the town's blue-collar ethnic families.

"We went to the poorest elementary school in town," he said.

Purce forged lifelong friendships with children such as Pono Angelo and Charlie Morimoto.

Blue collar families: "The school turned out lots of great athletes," said Purce, who attended Idaho State University on a football scholarship. "We were children of blue collar workers, all trying to get to the next stage."

While participating in track, basketball and chorus, Purce maintained a better than 3.0 grade point average, but that wasn't good enough for an eighth-grade counselor, who recommended Purce for a vocational education program.

"In those years, counselors ignored everybody but the top students," he said.

"It made me angry and I said 'you just see if I go to vocational school.'"

He said he was fortunate to have the support of his parents.

"If they don't help, you fall between the cracks," he said. "My folks were at the school on people's behinds if they thought it was needed. Like I tell my students, parents have to care who you are."

Purce's parents divided politically, however. John Purce was chairman of the Bannock County Democratic Central Committee for years, while Idaho Purce served on the Republican side.

She was a founding member of the state's Human Rights Commission.

Purce inherited his parents' dedication to public service, most recently serving on the state of Washington K-12 Accountability Task Force, the Executive Ethics Board and the Ecotrust Board of Advisers.

"We have a responsibility to contribute our talents to the greater good," he said.

Good people: Purce is married to Jane C. Sherman, assistant vice provost for academic affairs at WSU. The couple has three daughters: Deborah, a student at Lewis and Clark College in Portland; and Sarah and Miriam, students at Pullman High School.

When he asked his grandmother when she was more than 100 years old why she came to Idaho, she said: "I heard the people were good and it was a good place to raise a family."

"I hope that, someday, my three daughters might choose to return here, to their home town, because they hear that the people are good, and it's a great place to raise a family," Purce said.