Future returns – Idaho reunited through 43rd Idaho Business Leader of the Year Honor Given to Duane B. Hagadone.

ISU’s Business Leader of the Year, Duane Hagadone, and his executive team provide insight to students
For 36 hours, the middle of Idaho disappeared.

Northwest met southeast. The gulf between the southern tip of Lake Coeur d’Alene and the northern fringe of American Falls Reservoir wasn’t 300 miles; it was one smooth skipping rock apart.

Cascade and Challis vanished. Salmon and St. Anthony got the squeeze.

Our Republicans mirrored their Republicans. Their Mormons looked a lot like our Catholics.

For 36 hours, Coeur d’Alene and Pocatello were more than sister cities; they were estranged siblings reunited in a fleeting but warm embrace by, of all things, a group of Idaho State University students.

Members of the ISU chapter of Alpha Kappa Psi, the nation’s oldest business fraternity, pulled off the geographical feat. They closed the gap by naming Coeur d’Alene’s Duane B. Hagadone their 43rd Idaho Business Leader of the Year. It was an honor that staggered Hagadone when he looked into the tribute more closely.

"I hadn’t realized that in all the years of this award, I was just the second recipient from north of Boise," Hagadone said. The other was one of his friends, Wallace’s Harry F. Magnuson, Idaho Business Leader of the Year in 1984.

Hagadone also didn’t realize the significance of his journey south until he got a note from one of his retired executives, Coeur d’Alene’s Bob Paulos.

"Bob reminded me that way back in ’48 or ’49, he was editor of the Idaho State Journal and also a radio broadcaster in Pocatello," Hagadone said Thursday. "He said he remembered doing a high school basketball playoff game between Coeur d’Alene and Pocatello, and there was this kid for Coeur d’Alene High named Hagadone.

"That was over 50 years ago. And it was the last time I set foot in Pocatello."

Hagadone shook his head.

Full Story: http://www.cdapress.com/articles/2006/03/26/business/bus01.txt