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Retired pastor finds ways to have fun

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Mike Bullard has volunteered several years with LWV.

By Kaye Hult

In a variety of civic endeavors throughout his life, Mike Bullard, a retired pastor and former disaster recovery organizer, has stayed true to his intention to do positive things and have fun while working with people toward a common goal.

That has recently included his involvement with the League of Women Voters of Kootenai County (LWVKC) and restarting the Inland Northwest Opera.

Reflecting on his civic engagement, Mike observed that "politics must come back to being civil discussion about facts, not just an online stampede of political rhetoric on both sides.

"People are working from different sets of information from their computer bubbles," he continued, "and have grown to hate each other.

"We need a chance to compare our sources of information. We need to be in conversation," he suggested.

"The church is involved," Mike affirmed. "We are not just bystanders in this whole thing. Parts of the church are part of the problem. We need to listen to the many sides of issues."

Serving as president for the League of Women Voters of Kootenai County (LWVKC) is one of the fun ways Mike Bullard seeks to do "positive civic engagement with good people."

The league came into being in Chicago in 1920, six months before the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, when women won the right to vote.

The LWV was formed by the suffragists of the National American Woman Suffrage Association as a "mighty political experiment" designed to help 20 million women carry out their new responsibilities as voters, according to the national LWV website.

"Over time, it turned to educating all voters," said Mike. "I have always appreciated the league for being independent and educational."

Mike became involved with the LWVKC when they had a fundraiser using the book he had written about Louise Shadduck, Lioness of Idaho: The Power of Polite, for one of their monthly programs.

Louise, native to Coeur d'Alene, was the epitome of civic involvement, a quiet, good-natured woman who worked behind the scenes, he said.

She ultimately became a journalist, political activist, public servant, author, speaker and lobbyist and the first woman to serve in an Idaho governor's executive cabinet as a department secretary.

Louise was a member of First Presbyterian Church in Coeur d'Alene when Mike was pastor.

"I loved her civic attitude," he said, adding that when she died in 2008 at the age of 92, he officiated at her funeral.

Of major importance for the League during election seasons throughout the country, is VOTE411.org.The Kootenai County members, for example, contact all the candidates for the election, asking them a unified set of questions and then providing the candidates' answers related to the platforms on which they are running for office.

The LWVKC serves the Kootenai County area, including the communities of Coeur d'Alene, Fernan Village, Harrison, Hauser, Hayden, Hayden Lake, Post Falls, Rathdrum and Spirit Lake.

The league is non-partisan, neither supporting nor opposing candidates or political parties.

In that mode, the LWVKC and the Coeur d'Alene Press will sponsor a Candidate Forum from 2 to 4 p.m., Sunday, Oct. 5, in the Community Room of the Coeur d'Alene Library.

"Candidates for city council and the mayor of Coeur d'Alene are invited to attend. Each has received two questions ahead of time, so they can prepare their answers," Mike said.

"They will be given three minutes each to answer each question. There may be time at the end for questions. With 10 candidates potentially attending, there may not be enough time to field everybody's questions at the end," he said. 

LWVKC provides such opportunities so voters will be able to vote intelligently, according to their best understandings, come Election Day, which is Tuesday, Nov. 4, this year.

Also coming up in November, LWVKC will host a forum on The Need for Women's Healthcare in Idaho. It will take place from 2 to 4 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 9, in the CdA Library Community Room.

"In two years, Idaho has lost 35 percent, over a third of its OB/GYN doctors," he said. "These doctors specialize in the female reproductive system and are critical for diagnosis, preventative care and emergency services to keep women and babies safe through pregnancy and childbirth, especially when there is any sort of large or small complication," he said.

"Idaho already had the worst percentage of all doctors to population ratio of any state in the union," he went on. "We are 51st in the nation.

"We don't feel it as much in Kootenai County, because 85 percent of the remaining OB/GYN doctors are concentrated in the most populated seven counties, which means the availability of doctors in most of the rest of Idaho is worse than some third world countries," he said.

"With cuts in Medicaid and legislators trying to cut the University of Washington School of Medicine (WWAMI), the scene is deteriorating for everyone, especially women and babies," he concluded.

Mike's love of having fun through civic involvement doesn't stop with his LWVKC participation.

In 2014, he was involved in disaster relief through the Presbyterian church, Red Cross and Federal Emergency Management Authority (FEMA). For a while, that included chairing the interstate Volunteer Organizations Active in Disaster (VOAD) for Eastern Washington and North Idaho.

Recently, Mike has teamed up with new board members to restart the Inland Northwest Opera.

"Opera tells the human story with human voices," he commented. "There is something about hearing the human voice without electronics in between. Also, the stories are timeless," he said.

"I became involved with opera in college, he reminisced. "It grew on me.  Now, I'm involved in its organizational side.

"There are so many good singers in this community who have worked hard," he continued. The community deserves to hear them, many nationally and internationally known artists, who live right here in the Inland Northwest.

"It's only right that we have opera, to have them onstage, hear them and let them practice their art," he finished.

Mike's civic involvement began when he was a teenager.

"I used to work for politicians of a variety of parties," he reflected. "I've been involved all my life."

He grew up primarily in Tennessee, with a small stint in Florida. He attended Maryville College, a small Presbyterian school in Tennessee.

Though not from a church-going family, Mike found friendships in the church when his family moved from city to city. Between that and an inner-city ministry internship while he was in seminary, he came to feel that the church had a message of hope.

"It sits right in the neighborhood with people, so can give them hope right where they are," he said.

He attended McCormick Seminary in Chicago, where he received a master in divinity degree.  His first church was an inner-city church in Cleveland in 1974. Mike continued his studies at Chicago Theological Seminary, where he studied pastoral care. His doctoral thesis dealt with assisting victims and survivors of domestic violence. He graduated with a doctor of ministry degree in pastoral care in 1987.

After pastoring in Illinois, he went to Indiana, where he met his wife Betsy, and then to Twin Falls, Idaho.

From there, he moved to Coeur d'Alene to become pastor at First Presbyterian Church, where he served for 16 years.

For information, call 208-659-2491, email mabullard@gmail.com or visit facebook.com/LWVKootenaiCounty.

 
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