Gov. Beverly Perdue already changed the governor's office by the time she arrived Monday morning. She had rearranged the furniture.
Perdue arrived at the capitol shortly after 9 a.m., though she had been working or exercising at her Chapel Hill home since 5:30 a.m.
(Former Gov. Mike Easley and First Lady Mary Easley are not completely cleared out of the Executive Mansion yet, and the mansion needs to be inspected to make sure a mold problem corrected in 2006 hasn't recurred.)
Dressed in a cobalt blue suit, Perdue welcomed her new staff, many of whom were moving boxes, learning the phones or meeting the state troopers who protect the governor. She hugged Sharon Nelson, an aide for the past ten years.
Perdue had her own desk moved in, a gift in 1990 from a New Bern friend, and had it placed on the other side of the office from where Easley and then-Gov. Jim Hunt sat their desk. The new spot looks out a window.
"You know how much I like having a view," she said, as she looked over the office. Much of the furniture was the same, just moved. A hand-operated stamp sits on a window sill, an unwieldy, lever-action device that lets the governor emboss the state seal on a piece of paper as a souvenir for guests. Perdue gave it a try for a state photographer chronicling the first minutes of the day.
The episode lent new meaning to her pledge of being a "hands-on governor."
Blog RSS feed
