Long-time friend of Grant Woods recounts memories with him

Congressman Greg Stanton honored former Arizona Attorney General Grant Woods on the house floor today in Washington, as Arizonans continue to mourn the “loss” of Woods, who died Saturday at the age of 67. Earlier today, I spoke with Arizona Board of Regent chair-elect Fred DuVal, a longtime leader in the state who talked about his longtime friend.

“We were at Boise State, I was giving my speech for the office I was running for and he arranged for the amplifier to play Mission Impossible in the middle of my speech and I thought who is this mischievous guy and we would end up becoming great friends and went off to college together,” DuVal said.

DuVal said Woods has been the same for as long as he has known him.

“He was always the funniest most entertaining most charismatic guy in the room and also first in class,” Duval said.

DuVal said throughout his life it was easy to observe the range of his interests and charismatic personality traits. One important trait of Woods was his bluntness.

“The worst thing to be in Grant Woods’ life was a ‘poser.’ A poser is somebody who is being fake and spinning, he put it all out there with everything he did from his music to his writing to his politics,” DuVal said.

Woods threw his support to many Democrats while he was a Republican, one of them being DuVal.

“He understood that being a Republican and keeping one foot in what’s left of the McCain wing of the Republican party gave him more value to the Democrats he wanted to cross over for” DuVal said.