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“REMEMBERING MIKE ENZI” mentioning Mike Rounds was published in the Senate section on pages S5112-S5114 on July 27.
Of the 100 senators in 117th Congress, 24 percent were women, and 76 percent were men, according to the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
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The publication is reproduced in full below:
REMEMBERING MIKE ENZI
Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, let me thank my friend for recognizing me for something that I consider to be and that he considers to be and the rest of the Senate considers to be very significant.
Our hearts are very heavy today because, like so many of my colleagues, I am mourning the death of my dearest friend, Senator Mike Enzi of Wyoming. I say ``dearest friend'' because he is.
Mike Enzi was the quiet leader in the Senate. There aren't too many quiet leaders in the Senate. And when he talked, everyone listened, and that is a rare quality in a Senator. He was humble.
Now, other than his humility, we had a lot in common. We were both businessmen before getting into politics, and we had that in common. We were both mayors of major cities. We had that in common. We were elected to the Senate within just about the same time. Just a very short time after the first, the second came along. So we had a lot in common.
Something people might not know about Mike is that he had a heart for the downtrodden. He helped people that no one else helped. I mean, that is unusual. And the thing is, nobody knew that, just a handful of people who were with him.
One of the places where I spent a lot of time with him, as a couple of other Members, John Boozman from Arkansas and Mike Rounds from South Dakota, and others--we were with him in some of these places where no one else really knew what he was doing. Some people might not know about Mike that he had a heart for the downtrodden, to help people that no one else would help.
And I spent this morning reminiscing with friends of mine from all over the world who were calling up. Most of them are in different time zones, and they found out about Mike's death later on. And that put us in a position where we were talking to old friends that Mike and we had in common, and that happened most of the night. And the stories came from all over the world.
I think, over the coming days and weeks, America is going to learn a lot more about Mike Enzi. The only reason they never knew it before was because he was humble, but you will see that he had a hidden impact on people. He had an impact on people that resonated for long periods of time, for years. He deserved enormous credit for his lifetime of service but accepted none.
We both have a heart for Africa and traveled there often, whether to promote our work that we were doing officially or the great partnerships, or for Mike to see the implementation of PEPFAR.
And I say this because, if you were to single out one bill that helped more people than any other bill, likely, arguably, in the U.S. Senate, it would be PEPFAR. You know, Mike was the leading architect of PEPFAR when AIDS was running rage across the globe.
We all remember that. Everywhere we looked, the people were contracted with AIDS, especially in underserved places like Africa, and it was time for the United States to step up. President George W. Bush was committed to whatever funds it might require.
Keep in mind that this, arguably, was the most significant, heartwarming thing that had ever happened in the Senate. So George W. Bush said: We will come with any funds that might be required.
The job of the Senate was to structure the way the money was to be spent, but we needed someone to lead it. And that was what the President at that time said.
Well, the majority leader at that time--at that time, the Republicans were in the majority. So we had the majority leader in the Senate at that time, who was Dr. Bill Frist of Tennessee. We remember him, the fine job that he did.
I remember him looking over at the assembled Members of our caucus and thinking--because he told me this afterwards--he was thinking: Millions of lives are at stake. Who do I entrust with this job? Millions of lives are at stake. Who do I entrust with this job? His answer was: Mike Enzi, the shoe salesman from Gillette.
That bill, PEPFAR, is one of the greatest, most generous, most effective bills passed in my lifetime and the most significant piece of legislation ever for the continent of Africa. It was Mike Enzi's skill, toughness, compassion, and determination that got it done and kept it on track for a decade. Millions of lives have been saved. Millions of lives have been saved as a result of that one mission of Mike Enzi.
Mike had a story he would tell about his approach to tough problems. I have heard this probably 50 times over the years, but I still wish I could hear it and hear him tell it one more time. I will try to do it justice.
Mike was in South Africa. By the way, this thing that happened to him down there was something that changed his whole mission of prayer. He was with Paul. I can't tell you what Paul's last name was. Mike couldn't tell us what Paul's last name was. But he was a leader in South Africa. On one of his first visits, Mike asked Paul what he could do for him. Paul asked Mike to pray, and Mike said he would pray for solutions.
The way Mike told it, Paul leapt up and slammed his fist on the table and exclaimed: No. He said: We pray for people, and then the issues will solve themselves. Pray for the people.
See, this is what changed his whole prayer behavior until his death. Mike took that to heart and truly lived it. He kept the people as his focus, knowing that by doing so, the solutions would follow. Throughout his trips, he was always there. He was always there. When we couldn't find Mike, he would be with the kids, with kids who had problems.
In Tanzania, one of the--the first call I got this morning was from Lazaro. He is from Tanzania. He was first to express his condolences about Mike.
Then the second call that I got--the first call was from the Congo. They started a prayer breakfast there, where he brought together political enemies, and that is still going on. So Mike had started a prayer breakfast in the Republic of the Congo, in a place where it is still going on today.
Uganda--another one. He went up to northern Uganda. We were together at that time. We went with him to see the devastation of Joseph Kony and the LRA. The people in this Chamber know about the LRA, the Lord's Resistance Army. And it was Joseph Kony. Remember Joseph Kony? He would be the guy who would go and take the kids out of the villages and teach them to shoot and kill people. I am talking about 10-year-old kids, 11-
year-old kids. If they didn't learn, they had to go back to their village and murder their parents. It was something that went on for a long period of time.
This is Mike. Both of them were here in both of these pictures. The top one is that area in northern Uganda where all that was taking place, where Joseph Kony was going through these horrible things
Diana was there. Diana is with one of the nuns who was there at that time.
The next picture down there--where is that one? That is also Uganda. Yes, that was also Uganda. Those little kids were nearing the age where they would be captured and sent, and he was able to stop that.
Ethiopia, Yetabon. Yetabon was a place where we had a loved one, someone we really cared a lot for. She did so much for poor people. Yetabon was a place where they would go up and teach people, this very charitable group did.
We used to call Mike the socks and shoes man. He was a shoe salesman. That is how he started out, as a shoe salesman. He somehow got a hold of more shoes and soccer balls to take to places in needy areas, primarily in Africa. So that is where we spent time with him.
Rwanda. The next picture you have--this has the President of Rwanda and his wife Jeannette, and here is Jeannette down here with his wife. It was something that we all loved. In fact, we had the wives there, four Members of the Senate, who were there with us at that time. This is more of the things we just did together.
In Kenya, a very similar thing happened.
This is another thing that is taking place today. In Kenya, we went to the National Prayer Breakfast. That was 6 or 7 years ago. We were there, and we had played a part in that National Prayer Breakfast. But at the time, there had been a guy named Kenyatta, who was President of Kenya, and Odinga. Odinga and Kenyatta were bitter enemies, and they talked about killing each other. They actually tried several times. But Mike made a statement there, with 4,000 witnesses in Kenya, and told a story about love and how these people had loved these two members when their Parliaments were together many years ago, that they loved each other, and invited them to come up and to embrace, and they did that. That was between two groups of people headed up by Kenyatta and Odinga, and they became, right at that point, friends for life. Today, they are still friends. Kenyatta is retiring, and Odinga most likely will be elected to be his successor. Now, that was years ago when that happened.
Western Sahara. Right now, we are fighting this thing. We are very much on the side of the Western Sahara in the fight.
The picture you are looking at, I think, is a picture of President Ghali. President Ghali, yes. Wherever we went, we would also see--Mike would disappear. These are the only two he could find in that area who were from his State. But nonetheless, there he is with the leader, the President of that country.
John Kufuor--the same thing happened. John Kufuor--it is kind of funny because if you go to Ghana--and not to be confused with Uganda--
but in Ghana, it is funny because there are more people there, more Jesus people there than anywhere else. So he named a stand--to help some people there, he called it Jesus for Jesus. That was Mike Enzi.
Malawi. He started a prayer group in Malawi. The young parliamentarians on this early visit--Lazarus was one of the original members and is now President of Malawi. Now, we are getting a bit old now, but this happened a long time ago. He was close with him, and that is another call that we got early this morning.
There are probably half a dozen other countries in Africa we visited together and a dozen or so outside of the continent. No matter how difficult the trip was, whether he was getting left in Kosovo, which actually happened--he was with a bunch of kids in Kosovo, and we miscounted our passengers and left him in Kosovo and had to go back and get him. But no matter how difficult the trip was by the codel, leading to a new term called ``getting Enzi'd''--so that is a new term that we use here in the U.S. Senate. If you are late someplace and you get left alone, you are ``getting Enzi'd''; or in Uganda when the ceiling in his hotel room fell on him when he was sleeping. He was always there no matter how tough things were.
It was more than the policy for Mike; he also loved people--I mean all people. We couldn't go anywhere without him packing hundreds of soccer balls and shoes to give away to kids.
Now, how it happened, soccer balls and shoes--I don't know how many thousands of soccer balls and shoes that he had distributed to these kids, but one thing they all had in common: They were all barefoot when they started.
One of the things that we attributed to him because it was one of his favorite proverbs, Proverbs 31:8-9--this actually is not by Solomon; this is by someone a lot of people haven't heard of. It was King Lemuel. ``Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy.'' That was the impact that Mike had on everyone.
He and Diana also regularly hosted parties for Capitol staff. This is kind of interesting because we are used to parties around here. There are lots of parties to go to. Every night, there are parties and all that, but not Mike's parties. Mike's parties were for the people, for the staff. They were for the people you didn't see every day. You would see them every day, but you would never give appreciation to them: the cleaning staff, food service, electricians, and others. These are the people he invited, and he and his wife would do together, would hold these parties for them. Diana enjoyed it just as much as Mike did. He loved those parties.
He also loved talking about how, during one of them, he was talking to an electrician in the Capitol, some guy who was working as an electrician in the Capitol, who kept the place going every day--we understand that--and then the man turned to him after they had talked for a long period of time. Mike had asked him what an electrician does around the Capitol and all that. When he got all through, he looked at Mike and said: Well, Mike, what do you do? So that was Mike. He never wanted attention from anyone. He always laughed about that story. That was good
Now, we are talking today about how much of a team Mike and Diana were and how well they complemented each other. She was saying how much fun they were to be with because they truly enjoyed everything that they did. As Kay put it--my wife--she said: They both looked for ways to help people. While Mike was steadfast and intentional, Diana was a whirlwind of energy that brought the vision to life.
You know, Kay and Mike were also both members of the Zipper Club--I bet you guys don't know what the Zipper Club was--because they both had their heart valves replaced about the same time. My wife used a cow valve, and Mike used a mechanical valve. Diana would always tell Kay that she could hear Mike's valve rattling at night. So Kay always told him that he should have had it done with a cow valve.
You know, these are very important subjects we are talking about here. But they are things that make memories. That is really who he is and who he was.
Mike never missed our weekly Senate Prayer Breakfasts, where he was a leader for many years. He even had a card with all 100 Senators--that is all the Senators who are here in this room right now--all 100 Senators, and he divided 100 Senators up into 5 groups. So he would pray for 20 Senators each day.
One time when he was leading the Prayer Breakfast, he invited King Abdullah from Jordan to join us. In fact, King Abdullah was here last week, and I shared this story with him because he was always a little nervous about what he was going to say. The Lord gave him a verse, and it was an excellent example of prayer uniting those different faiths. We are talking about the Muslims and Mike Enzi. So King Abdullah paid homage to him, saying he should have been there again.
Even after he retired from the Senate, he joined us every week and virtually for prayer and discussion and fellowship. Tomorrow's breakfast will not be the same because he retired from the Senate just a few months ago, but he attended every one of our Prayer Breakfasts virtually. So, as Mike Rounds said, I got to know Mike on a deeper level each week. But more than anything else, bigger than any other accomplishment, was Mike's love for his family.
Mike was utterly devoted to his family for more than 50 years: Diana; the three children, Amy, Emily, and Brad; and their grandchildren. Come to think of it, Mike's favorite topics were Jesus, the family, and fishing.
Now, you might think that trout fishing wouldn't be anyone's favorite thing to do if they are a Member of the Senate. But he would travel around. There is not a lot of people but a lot of land in Wyoming. One of the problems he would have, his staff would tell me, was that they would line up something he was supposed to be doing in another part of the State, but he would go across the creek someplace, and he would get out and, if he was catching fish, he would completely forget about where he was going to go. And the staffs don't enjoy that type of thing.
Nonetheless, that is what he did. He knew how to fly-fish. In fact, one of the things we were anticipating from Mike and Diana was that Kay and I spent a lot of time--people don't realize that in the State of Oklahoma we have more miles of freshwater shoreline than in any of the 50 States. Do you believe that? Yes, it is true. Nonetheless, he loved to fish.
One of the things they were going to do when they retired, Mike and Diana, was that they were planning to travel Route 66 and go all the way across. Well, the cabin we have in Lake Texoma, OK, is right on Route 66. So they were planning to come and join us.
Kay and I join the entire Enzi family together in their grief and in celebrating the remarkable life of a true servant leader, Mike Enzi. And all we say is: Mike, we will see you soon.
I yield the floor.
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