Remembering a presidential visit

Preparations began a few days before the big event.

"My mother did make my sister and I new little dresses," Terri Berrenberg remembers. "She made them out of feed sacks; chicken-feed sacks. I think I still have one of them around here somewhere."

She was only 8 at the time and doesn't remember a lot of details. She does remember the photographers and how they threw their used flash bulbs on the ground.

"I liked the blue ones," she said. "They were so blue, and clear."

Saturday marked 60 years since Dwight D. Eisenhower set foot on Raymond Worrell's farm eight miles west of Clovis. It was one of seven stops the president made in six states to see first-hand the devastating effects of drought in the Southwest.

Ike remains the only sitting president to visit Curry County.

Rex Worrell was not impressed at the time.

"To a 16-year-old, it wasn't a very big deal," he said. "I wasn't much interested."

Wade Worrell, 17, was a little more aware of the significance of the events that unfolded around him.

"They came out a few days before and took aerial photos of the place," he said. Members of the president's security team then warned the family that when the president arrived, "... all the equipment had to be right where it was when they took that photo."

Wade Worrell said he remembers Ike being friendly as he talked with Raymond and Gladys Worrell.

A report in the Clovis News-Journal reports Ike asked Raymond Worrell about the family's financial situation.

"I don't know, Mr. President," he responded. "You'll have to ask my wife - she keeps the books."

CN-J also detailed a conversation the president had with Wade Worrell:

"The president told the youngster he had a black calf of his own on his Gettysburg, Pa., farm and if he didn't live so far away he would let Wade exhibit the animal for him."

Sixty years later, Wade Worrell could not remember any discussion with Eisenhower. But he did remember the dozens of reporters who accompanied the president had no knowledge of farming.

He thinks a family member turned off an electric fence for their safety.

"They didn't know what it was or what it would do," he said during a telephone conversation last week.

The Worrell children - Terri lives in Albuquerque now, Rex is in Dublin, Texas, and Wade in Lovington - all said their dad was active in state party politics as a Democrat.

"I remember he was a little surprised (Eisenhower visited their place), because Eisenhower was a Republican," Berrenberg said.

Wade Worrell said his dad was president of the local farm bureau at the time of the president's tour and, in that position, he was asked to suggest a farm where Eisenhower could visit.

"Daddy suggested a place further west of us, close to St. Vrain I think," he said. "But when the Secret Service went out there to look, they decided to come to our place because of the proximity from the airport (Cannon Air Force Base) and for security."

Politics was not so divisive in those days. Wade Worrell said he suspects his father may have even voted for Eisenhower.

"I asked Daddy about it once. He kinda hemmed and hawed and he never would really say, but I got the impression he did."

Newspaper accounts described the drought of 1957 as being "the worst in 50 years or more in some areas."

Wade Worrell said irrigation was important to the success of the family operation.

"We changed the water every six hours," he said. "Me being the oldest, I got to get up at midnight to help Daddy. We changed water every six hours - at 6 and 12, and 6 and 12."

The family grew wheat, operated a small dairy and kept a few hogs.

Less than a year after the president visited the Worrells' farm, they sold it and moved to Las Cruces, in part so Gladys Worrell could earn a teaching degree.

The decision had less to do with drought than with other factors, the kids all said.

Rex was going in the Navy and Wade was on his way to college. Jimmy Worrell was the family's only other boy and he was 6. Mary Lou, the youngest, was 5.

"I think my dad didn't have two more boys coming up, so he wasn't going to have any more cheap labor," Rex Worrell laughed.

None of the kids has had another presidential encounter, unless you count Rex living in Midland, Texas, at the same time as future President George W. Bush for a few years.

"I never knew him," Rex said, "but I used to see him sometimes."

David Stevens is editor for Clovis Media Inc. Contact him at: [email protected]