(Source: MIRS.news, Published 05/01/23) After logging 18 years as a state House member and another 18 years as the clerk of that august body, you might think that Gary Randall, on the first day of his retirement, had a shock to his system.
He woke up on that first Tuesday morning with that 70-mile drive to the Capitol not on his agenda for the first time in 44 years.
MIRS asked the affable Randall what those first thoughts were?
"It must be Saturday," he laughed, quickly adding. "I thought I was going to miss Lansing (but) it took one week for that to go away." He laughed again, seemingly surprised at how little time it took him to move on.
But to what?
He quickly readjusted to a host of other assignments, including tending to his 100 colonies of more than a million bees. It turns out he and another farmer produce honey that they pour into 55-gallon drums and ship off to your local Meijer stores.
And if you're wondering how the former clerk of the House found himself a bee farmer? It's not exactly a natural transition.
As fate would have it, when he was working his way through Michigan State University, he took every spring term off to work for the state as … what else? A bee inspector. He was one of eight who trolled the state, visiting this bee farm and that, and suffering through one bee sting after another, sometimes as many as 100 times a day.
"After a while your body builds up an immunity and the fire of the sting only lasts a few minutes."
One wonders if he wishes he had that same kind of vaccine when both political parties were leaning on him to make this ruling or that on some arcane aspect of House rules.
In addition to being a bee farmer, he is monitoring his property in Gratiot County, which is being used for 75 wind turbines and the accompanying 2 radar towers to warn airplanes that the windmills are ahead. Eventually, Consumers Energy will take over that task.
He's had calls for new jobs and has not bitten on any of them.
"I have no regrets about leaving," when it dawned on him during last term that it was time to go. "It was a great place to work, but as I approached 80, I wanted to leave on the top of my game." He did not want a senior moment, during one of those contentious exchanges with floor leaders from both sides of the aisle.
But even though he is no longer playing the game, the game is somehow still following him because, at the end of the interview, he tipped the reporter off to a huge story.
"The Capitol Commission has just issued an RFP for a weapons detection system in the state capitol," he shared this breaking news story.
"Thanks for the news tip, Gary, gotta go chase that down."
