By BRIAN WALKER

Staff Writer

When Paula Marano saw former Idaho governor and U.S. Secretary of the Interior Cecil Andrus at political gatherings, she didn't even need a name tag for the larger-than-life leader to know her on a first-name basis.

Andrus, a Democrat and Idaho's longest-serving governor at 14 years, died at 85 of complications from lung cancer late Thursday in Boise.

"He'd spontaneously come up to me and say, 'Hi Paula. How are you?' He'd remember my name without seeing a name tag," said the Coeur d'Alene woman, who has been involved in local education and Democrat efforts and is the wife of former Judge Gene Marano.

"I was wowed by his presence and what he represented, especially care of the environment and care for each other. He was truly a people person."

"Cece" was governor from 1971 to 1977 and again from 1987 to 1995. He was the last Democrat to hold the office in red-state Idaho.

"If there's a Mount Rushmore for public service in Idaho, Cecil Andrus will be on it," said Mike Kennedy, a local businessman, former Coeur d'Alene City Council member and head of the Idaho Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee in 2002.

Chris Carlson, who lives in Medimont and was Andrus' press secretary for nearly 10 years, said Andrus was the driving force behind the Stream Channel Protection Act which made it clear that mining and timber operations had to respect watersheds.

"Cece always understood that if you take care of the outdoors, it becomes a tourist attraction that generates income in and of itself," Carlson said.

Carlson admits that when Andrus was going to be in an Idaho Potato Commission ad in 1974 donning a pink apron in a kitchen, Carlson was skeptical.

"I was dead wrong; it was a great ad talking about (the different ways to eat spuds)," Carlson said. "He winked at the end of the ad and everybody wanted to see Andrus wear a pink apron."

Andrus was Interior secretary from 1977 to 1981 during the Carter Administration, engineering the conservation of millions of acres of Alaska land.

Andrus was known for his regular-guy leadership style, conservation legacy, patience and ability to cross political lines to get projects accomplished.

"He was a great political leader, maybe the greatest," said George Sayler, a former state legislator from North Idaho. "He was a man of conscience who protected our natural beauty. He was not afraid to take on the federal government, but he also was not an anti-government zealot. He was truly a remarkable, charismatic person."

Andrus made his kids breakfast before heading into his office, took time off in the middle of his 1974 re-election campaign to bag an elk, and had his home phone number listed in the Boise directory.

Sayler said he remembers attending a teacher rally in Boise in 2002 that protested proposed cuts to education when Andrus arrived on scene to speak seven years after serving as governor.

"The crowd chanted, 'Cecil! Cecil!'" Sayler said. "It was so inspirational and what galvanized me to run for office. He was one of my true heroes."

Tony Stewart, a local human rights leader, said Andrus was compassionate about making life better for people.

"Every so often there will be individuals who have a great personality, are very intelligent, know how to communicate and have a great vision for the future," Stewart said. "Cecil Andrus fit all those criteria."

Stewart remembers Andrus attending a 20th anniversary celebration of the Human Rights Commission at North Idaho College attended by local students. After Andrus left the party, Stewart noticed two students were crying.

"They weren't able to get his signature, so I called Andrus's chief of staff and, in a few days, beautiful postcards with his signature and a note to each student were sent," Stewart said. "You talk about two students who leaped out of their chairs when we presented them the signatures."

Stewart said he admired the continuity between Andrus and Phil Batt, his Republican successor as governor.

Andrus blocked the U.S. Department of Energy from shipping radioactive waste from a Colorado nuclear weapons site to the Idaho National Laboratory. After accepting the waste on a "temporary" basis for 17 years, Andrus said, Idaho would no longer be the nation’s radioactive garbage dump.

The standoff persisted through Batt, and the energy department ultimately signed a 1995 agreement to remove all the radioactive rubbish that had been dumped in Idaho since the Cold War.

"There was a real friendship between Cecil Andrus and Governor Batt," Stewart said. "They were of different parties, but had great respect for each other."

Kennedy, who as a Washington D.C. intern met Andrus and later spent time with him during the campaign for Congressman Walt Minnick, recalls a whirlwind timber tour in North Idaho that he took with Andrus and Minnick.

"In between meetings I drove the car and listened to Andrus and Minnick talk politics, policy, family and conservation," Kennedy said. "It was a Ph.D in Idaho politics from a man who was helping his friend Walt become a candidate and helping me learn what great leadership is all about. We couldn't get out of any grocery store or gas station without someone telling him where they first met... The guy was simply a legend."

Kennedy said he was nervous during one leg of the trip when Andrus was in a time crunch between meeting with a reporter in Lewiston and a dinner announcing his support for Minnick in Orofino. Leave it to Cece to find the solution: Have Kennedy drive ahead in the rental car to the dinner to explain the tardiness, and Andrus would drive the reporter's car so the reporter could interview Minnick.

When Andrus and Co. finally arrived in Orofino, Kennedy said, Andrus gave the reporter blunt instructions to get his car fixed because the front end was shaking so badly.

"Andrus told him, 'You're going to get yourself killed, or worse, somebody else,'" Kennedy said. "Classic Cece Andrus — having no ego about being the driver, letting the reporter get his story, then scolding the reporter with sage advice about the car's problem."

As an Idaho transplant, Kennedy said he stole one of Andrus's best lines when he ran for office.

"I wasn't born in Idaho, but I got here as fast as I could," Kennedy said.

A onetime lumberjack and later an insurance businessman, Andrus's 35-year political career started when his beer-drinking buds at the Veterans of Foreign Wars hall in Orofino nominated him to run for office. Andrus once said being Idaho's governor was "the best political job in the world."

His many supporters admire his efforts and charismatic personality.

"Idaho is a much greater state because he served," Stewart said.