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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Spin Control

Not everyone is dying to meet a governor

OLYMPIA -- Logan Hargrove, grandson of Sen. Jim Hargrove, D-Hoquiam, peers around the corner of the governor's chair as Jay Inslee prepares to sign his grandfather's last bill before retiring from the Legislature. (Jim Camden/The Spokesman-Review)
OLYMPIA -- Logan Hargrove, grandson of Sen. Jim Hargrove, D-Hoquiam, peers around the corner of the governor's chair as Jay Inslee prepares to sign his grandfather's last bill before retiring from the Legislature. (Jim Camden/The Spokesman-Review)

OLYMPIA -- An official bill signing is usually a chance for people to meet the governor, shake hands, maybe exchange a few pleasantries. On Thursday, 5-year-old Logan Hargrove was having none of that.

Logan accompanied his grandfather, longtime State Sen. Jim Hargrove, D-Hoquiam, to Olympia for the signing of Senate Bill 6531, which will change the way the Department of Corrections supervises inmates based on their offenses. Given that the department is under a bit of pressure in recent months for things like letting inmates out before their sentences were fully served, and that Hargrove had made a habit over his 32 years in the Legislature of making sure the department had both the money it needed and the oversight it required, it was an important bill.

It was also Hargrove's last bill, because he's not running for re-election and retiring at the end of the year. 

The senator brought Logan into the governor's conference room, and Inslee turned around in his official high-backed governor's chair -- the one with the George Washington in the state seal embossed in the brown leather -- to say "hi." Logan stepped back.

Shake hands? No. High five? No. Small talk? No. Official governor's pencil? OK.

Using skills more likely developed as a grandfather than a governor, Inslee turned around in his chair, fiddled with the bill and talked to Hargrove. Logan approached slowly from behind and peered around the corner of the chair back. He eventually he got curious enough to join the two grownups for the ceremonial signing.

Hargrove said 31 years ago, when he was a freshman legislator having his first bill signed by then-Gov. Booth Gardner, Logan's father accompanied him to the ceremony. His son's head reached just over the top of the table then, as Logan's did on Thursday.



Jim Camden
Jim Camden joined The Spokesman-Review in 1981 and retired in 2021. He is currently the political and state government correspondent covering Washington state.

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