Journalists often take themselves too seriously.

As Bonneville’s premiere source for community news, the Idaho Falls Free Press has made huge efforts to cover what’s happening around us. So when the Idaho Grain Producers were in town, my editor assigned me to cover the speech by an undersecretary of the Department of Agriculture at the conference banquet.

I ended up sitting at Dr. Harvey Hollingsworth’s table, the undersecretary, during dinner. I did not pay much attention to him, but noticed he was quiet and no one really talked to him. I thought it was because he couldn’t relate to our dinner conversations about hobo spiders and new hospitals.

When Hollingsworth was introduced, IGP president Mike Ricks rattled off his impressive credentials. He sounded like any Washington mucky-muck bureaucrat to me.

Like a good reporter, I snapped pictures right and left, unfortunately making myself extremely obvious, and then sat down to take notes on what this smooth government talker was saying.

He started out like most, "I bring you greetings from the administration and Secretary Glickman." Ya, ya, get to the policy, I thought. "A lot of people think we in Washington are out of touch with the normal person, but we aren’t," he said. OK, prove it.

He started rolling. In the next five minutes he laid out the administration’s plan to boycott grain exports to third world countries that violate President Clinton’s wishes, and cease the export credit program.

The hecklers started. I was writing as fast as my hand could scribble. This was a journalist’s dream. I could write the headline now: Grain producers boo Clinton appointee.

Then Hollingsworth started campaigning for Vice President Al Gore. He told the crowd that the department’s policy was going to start emulating Gore’s environmental book, "Earth in Balance." After all, Gore would be president in 2000 anyway, he said. The crowd hiss and some laughed in disbelief. Quick headline change: Grain producers appalled by Clinton appointee after he stumps for Gore.

I said the man next to me, "Is this guy for real?" I couldn’t believe an undersecretary would travel 2,000 miles to tell struggling farmers they should vote for a guy they think wants to run them out of business. The torture continued.

Hollingsworth started advocating the no-till program as the end-all be-all of conservation. We should breach dams, because farmers should learn to rely on rain and not irrigation. While we are at it, lets put almost all the land into the Conservation Reserve Program so the United States could import everything from Canada.

Now, I was mad. I looked around the room. Red faced, fire eyed grain farmers were in dismay. This guy was going to get lynched after the meal, I thought. I was going to have to run outside and get pictures of the tar and feathering.

Then it turned ridiculous. I knew it was a joke when he started advocating ads with cereal on people’s upper lips like milk mustaches to increase domestic consumption. The hissing transformed to hordes of laughter.

The guy who would be the farmer’s next slaughtered lamb, wasn’t a government employee at all, but a professional comedian. His real name is Bob Ross, and he’s is from San Diego, Calif. He teaches people to lighten up and have fun in the work place. He has played every out-of-touch corporate, government know-it-all in the land.

Convention organizers decided to bring Ross in after he pulled the same stunt at the Oregon grain convention. They thought it would top off the banquet. It did.

Ross had the farmers thinking about how they could put fun into their jobs. He related the story of President John F. Kennedy who made his Cabinet repeat before every meeting, "I’m healthy, happy and here for fun."

I don’t know what current cabinet members say, but it’s probably, "I’m sick, tired and here to defend the adulterous lying president."

Ross says companies that have fun, produce more.

" The difference between work and play is attitude," he said. "When you laugh, it’s hard for people not to like you."