UI Chief’s Wife Brings Schoolteacher Skills To Role She’s Also Met Moscow Police, Unexpectedly, While Settling In

It took Jeanne Hoover a while to figure out why cops were hiding in the bushes bordering the yard of the University of Idaho president’s house.

Then came the dinner party. To add a little warmth to the evening, she and her husband, University President Robert Hoover, decided to use the fireplace for the first time. The house filled with smoke, sending the Hoovers scrambling to open doors and windows in hopes of airing the house in time for guests who would arrive in 20 minutes.

And there they were again, the Moscow police officers huddled behind their shrubs.

It turned out they were responding to the Hoovers’ duress alarm, which sounds at the police station. The cops thought the Hoovers might be under attack. A little sleuthing solved the mix-up. While fixing wiring in the house, workers had accidentally crossed the smoke and duress signals.

Before detecting the error, the cops had responded a couple of times to the Hoovers’ duress alarm. Apparently, caterers had set off what was supposed to be a smoke alarm with their heavy-duty food warmer.

Getting the bugs worked out of the system has been one of the many tasks facing Jeanne Hoover, 54, as she eases into her new role as wife of a university president.

“You learn from your mistakes,” she said. Seated in the living room of the presidential house on a recent afternoon, Hoover radiated the warmth of someone who has spent her life working with children. In contrast to the complex vernacular often heard in academia, the former schoolteacher talked about the alarm mix-up in a language polished by years of telling stories to youngsters.

But she also showed signs of a disciplinarian who keeps her classroom in order. While preparing garlic bread for a dinner with a candidate for provost, she didn’t hesitate to delegate duties to the president.

Being a president’s wife is easily a full-time job, she said, ticking off duties including entertaining, writing thank-you notes and traveling the state with her husband. But she likes to keep it in perspective.

“You can think big things about yourself, but it’s really just another role in life.”

Her role is visible because Moscow is a small town and the university has campuses throughout the state. Moscow store clerks recognize her, she said, which wouldn’t happen in a big city like Los Angeles, where she grew up.

She was a 24-year-old schoolteacher in Los Angeles when she met Robert on a blind date. He came to the city to celebrate completing his master’s degree.

The woman who arranged their first date will be at the inauguration.

After that first encounter, they started dating even though he lived in Phoenix. After they married, Hoover landed the first job of his university career at Utah State University in Logan, where they lived for 20 years.

Jeanne continued teaching kindergarten through second grade. She also taught the five years the couple spent in Reno, where her husband was vice president for academic affairs and professor of political science at the University of Nevada.

She knew she wanted to be a teacher at an early age, often choosing to play that part in childhood dramas.

“That was a very easy career decision and one I’ve loved my whole life,” she said.

Although she isn’t teaching now, she hasn’t given up the classroom. She supervises student teachers and acts as their “cheerleader,” she said.

She’s also interested in working with the school’s early childhood development program.

She ran a similar preschool for the children of students and faculty in Utah, where she earned a master’s degree in early childhood education.

A preschool should be full of hands-on learning for kids, a place where they discover new things and build self-esteem, she said.

She’s also been asked to join the board of directors for KUID, the Idaho Public Television station at Moscow.

If there is time left over from her busy schedule, she enjoys cooking, reading, skiing, camping and walking their dog, which she said is part golden retriever and part “hyper-maniac.”

Finding herself the wife of a college president is “a real shock,” she said. When she first met Robert, she recalled, “he didn’t really care for administrators.”

But they’re settling into the president’s house.

Looking out the living-room window she has a view of the UI arboretum.

“It’s kind of like a painting that changes with the lighting and the clouds and the weather.”

This time there are no unexpected visitors in the bushes to interrupt the view.