That’s Claire and Jeff Lukens, daughter and husband of Mayor Nancy Tyra-Lukens. First Daughter and First Gentleman of our fair city, if you will. The photo on the far left was taken during the Mayor’s final Council meeting this week. Jeff and Claire stayed for the entire meeting. The photo to the right of that one was taken at a reception for the Mayor and Councilmember Case following the meeting. That’s nice photo of Jeff and Claire taken during the meeting when they were recognizing their wife/mother for her 12 years of public service and telling her how proud they were of her. Claire gave her mother a bouquet of flowers. It was touching.
The photo of the right is me with Claire at another farewell reception for the Mayor and Councilmember Case that was held last night. Pictures of kids are good mile markers for the passage of time. When I started working here in Eden Prairie in April 2002, little Claire Lukens was nearing the end of 7th grade. Now she’s a Junior in High School and getting ready to pick out a college. I have a photo with her when she was a 7th grader, but she persuaded me not to use it in the blog today. Claire, today I’ll defer to you. Who knows, with your genes, I might be working for you someday. You never know.
I’ve had the occasion, many occasions actually, to talk with Jeff and Claire over the Mayor’s tenure. They served as her official aide-de-camps at home. Answering the phone; taking messages; working on her campaigns, etc. Lots of etcetera, I’ll bet. They’ve been great supporters of the Mayor. And they may not have ever thought about it in this way before, but by supporting their wife and mother, Jeff and Claire were also supporting the efforts of 290+ city employees as well. On behalf of them, I want to thank you for your twelve years of public service too.
Being the spouse or kid of an elected official isn’t easy. You get some of the burden, but none of the glory. I don’t get to bestow much glory in this world, but today I’ll indulge myself and declare this day on my blog to be: Jeff and Claire Lukens Day. The glory is yours.
