Today marks a weird historical coincidence in the state of Idaho in the US. It all started in 1942, in the small town of Caldwell. Clement Leroy Otter was born there on May 3. His father was a sort of traveling electrician, and the family moved around quite a lot. Otter attended no fewer than fifteen different schools.
He didn’t graduate from high school until he was 20, partly due to switching schools so often, and partly because he took a year off to care for his injured younger brother. He continued his education, and earned a BA in political science when he was 25. He was the first member of his family to graduate from college.
Otter, who had acquired the nickname “Butch” during his school career, went into politics when he was just 29. He was elected to the Idaho state legislature, and was later appointed to several offices in the US federal government. he was elected to the US congress in 2000, and served three two-year terms. Then in 2006, another link in the chain of coincidences happened: Butch Otter was elected to be the 32nd governor of Idaho.
The 31st governor of Idaho, Otter’s immediate predecessor, was Jim Risch. Risch was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and attended the same college as Otter: the University of Idaho. He earned a BS degree and went on to the school’s college of law, earning a JD degree and becoming a practicing trial lawyer. Like Otter, he entered politics at a young age, and got elected as a county prosecuting attorney at just 27. Risch was a very successful trial lawyer as well, and by all reports got extremely wealthy because of it. He served in the state senate, and eventually became the state’s Lieutenant Governor, in 2003. Then in 2006 he became the 31st governor when the governor at the time resigned to take an appointment in the US federal government. So there you have it. From 2003 to 2006, Jim Risch was the governor of Idaho, when he passed the office to Butch Otter. Otter and Risch clearly know each other, but what we don’t know is whether they’re together today, celebrating their shared birthday. They’re 82 and 81, respectively.
