Who is President Kermit L. Hall?
President Kermit L. Hall.
The man is seen all over the place, meeting with city leaders, talking to the press, supporting Utah State University’s athletic events, and attending theater productions. He’s always on the go. And he’s got the schedule to prove it.
Hall is going at it way before 8 a.m., said Rose Ernstrom, assistant to the president.
Ernstrom works with Teresa Denton to get Hall’s schedule to him. Ernstrom said it is one of the most dynamic things because the president is in such high demand. Ernstrom joked that when there’s a mess-up with the schedule, she tells Hall that Denton did it.
“When it’s great, I get the glory,” Ernstrom said.
But what about the man? Students, faculty, staff and of course, his wife, Phyllis, know he’s a busy guy.
Here’s how he got that way.
He was born Kermit Lance Hall on Aug. 31, 1944 in Ohio to a tire-builder and tire union president-at-Firestone father and bookkeeper mother. He has an older sister, Mary Bouvier, now of Lakeview Terrace, Calif.
Phyllis said Kermit was named after his father, who was named for one of President Theodore Roosevelt’s five
children.
Since he was 12 years old, Kermit held all sorts of jobs, he said. He delivered newspapers, shoveled snow, cut grass and worked at the YMCA. If that isn’t a far cry from being a university president, he also did fence painting and pig slaughtering. He worked as a gas attendant, a camp counselor and a janitor.
Athletics wasn’t a foreign concept to Kermit either. He played first base in baseball and played basketball.
Since he was so busy in college, he has empathy for current students.
“The president understands what it’s like to work until 10 or 11 at night and have an exam at 8:30,” he said.
Phyllis and Kermit met on a blind date while both were attending the University of Akron. They were both associated with different ROTC groups in college, but neither of them had dates for the military ball of 1966. So they were set up by one of Phyllis’ friends.
As they began to see more of each other, they sometimes left Akron to travel to nearby Kent State.
“We always loved going to theater … and loved going hiking,” Phyllis said.
It’s a good thing those same activities are available in Utah, because the Halls can be seen at Utah State Theatre productions and at the Utah Festival Opera.
Kermit said college was a bit less expensive than it is now.
“I paid something like $25 a semester, some ridiculous amount,” he said. “I’ve never made a better investment.”
After graduating from Akron; Kermit in history and Phyllis in education, he went on to Syracuse University and she began teaching.
Phyllis said she liked Kermit’s hard-working ethic, good sense of humor and intelligence.
1969 marked the year the Kermit and Phyllis were married in Ohio.
“Then we got in our little red Volkswagen and headed for Ft. Benning, Georgia,” Phyllis said.
Kermit received Army training in Georgia and he and Phyllis moved several times, spending the most time in Arlington, Va., but also spending time in Columbus, Ohio and Gainsville, Fla.
“The military is good because, like sports, most things don’t get done without the help of other people,” Kermit said.
The Halls had never been to Utah until the late 1970s when Kermit, working on research for a collective biography of Federal Court judges, came to look into the judges’ lives using resources at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ Family History Library.
“I never imagined we’d live here,” Phyllis said.
So now the Halls – Kermit and Phyllis and their two cats, Harry and Bess, named for the Trumans – are at USU.
Because Kermit has extensive commitments to Utah State and entertains guests from everywhere, the Halls often use the university home they live in on 1400 East for that purpose.
However, when there aren’t guests to be fed, Phyllis said she likes to cook low-fat foods for the two of them. What does the president of USU ask his wife for when she cooks?
Salmon. He also likes pizza, Phyllis said.
Kermit seems to be pretty health-conscious. He said he keeps a candy bar in his desk only very rarely. Normally, one would find apples and oranges in his drawer.
Looking around his office, one notices the books on his center table – diverse books, including, but not limited to “The Oxford Companion to American Law,” edited by Kermit. Sports equipment is not lacking in the office as well. There is a hockey stick signed by the USU Hockey team and given to him at the team’s first home game in September. A Frisbee signed by the USU ultimate Frisbee team adorns one of the shelves.
As would be expected for someone with the name Kermit, there are a few objects depicting or in the form of frogs.
A frog paperweight sits on his desk, and a picture of Kermit the Frog hangs on the wall.
When the Halls want to get away from Logan for awhile, they visit San Francisco. Phyllis said Woody Allen’s films are some of the favorite movies they enjoy watching together.
When it comes time to leave USU for good, what will the Halls do?
“It’s hard to imagine Kermit retiring,” Phyllis said.
-jmdo@cc.usu.edu