First Mention: Rick Perry Runs For Texas Agriculture Commissioner

For our series, "First Mention," we dig into our archives to find the first time former Texas Gov. Rick Perry was referenced on NPR's air.

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

When a name like Rick Perry re-emerges in the day's news, we dip into our audio archives for a...

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: First mention.

SIEGEL: The earliest reference to Rick Perry that we could find on NPR was on October 27, 1990. And he was talking mushrooms.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

RICK PERRY: Folks, we can grow reishi mushrooms in our backyards and Chinese cabbage and blueberries until the world looks level. And we ain't going to make a real impact on the Texas economy.

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

Perry was talking mushrooms back then because he was running for state agricultural commissioner. He was challenging the incumbent Democrat, Jim Hightower.

SIEGEL: Perry argued that the office needed to get back to the basics of Texas agriculture, like cattle, corn and cotton.

CORNISH: He said Hightower was too focused on less traditional crops like wine grapes, cut flowers and those mushrooms.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

PERRY: Now, we may have a heck of a time out there on the sides of the roads selling those babies and meeting lots of interesting people. But we are not going to make a dent - we're not going to make a blip on that economic graph in the state of Texas.

CORNISH: Jim Hightower was way ahead in the polls at the time. So almost everyone was caught by surprise when Rick Perry narrowly won that election in 1990.

SIEGEL: It was Perry's first win at statewide office and well before he went on to become Texas governor and maybe the next secretary of energy.

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