An incredible attitude

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TROY WOLVERTON Hindman goes for a walk on the "Hindman Trail" with Susie.

Skip Hindman puts it this way: "He has a great sense of adventure. He is not afraid to take some risks, to do the things that make life interesting and worthwhile."

Hindman showed this sense of adventure while he was serving in the Air Force. He joined after his first year of law school and while stationed at Homestead Air Force Base south of Miami, he flew B47 bombers between the base and Morocco. After flying to Morocco, many of Hindman’s friends liked to take their leaves in Europe. Although he sometimes accompanied them, Hindman says he really liked exploring Morocco.

"When you cross that strait (of Gibraltar), it’s like going back 1,000 years," he says one day as we sit in his law office. His face and hands become animated as he recalls his exploration of the North African country during the middle 1950s.

"It was not very westernized and what westernization there was was French," he says. "It was a period of change, really interesting."

"There were all these interesting cities, Roman ruins, Moorish architecture," he continues. "There were these ancient cities that looked just like they had hundreds and hundreds of years ago. It was a colorful, noisy place, full of wonderful aromas."

Hindman has not returned to Morocco since he left the Air Force and returned to law school. But the love for adventure that he took with him there lives on. Hindman and those close to him indicate it was that spirit that led him to run for mayor of Columbia in April 1995.

Because he had never run for office before, Hindman’s decision to run for mayor surprised Axie.

"I really hadn’t expected him to do that," she says.

Back in his law office, Hindman recalls that decision.

As an activist working with the city on a number of issues, he says he became interested in what the city could do and what it might be like to work on issues from the inside.

"I am a person who believes in having many experiences in life," he says. "The opportunity to serve as mayor is an unusual experience. I thought I had a good chance to win the election as mayor, but even if I didn’t win, I would have the experience of the campaign."

Challenges of office
Hindman was correct about his election chances; he won his 3-year term as mayor by winning more than three times as many votes as second-place finisher Rhonda Carlson.

Hindman, who himself is a Democrat, relates a story of how George Bush, after beating Michael Dukakis in the 1988 presidential election, refused to criticize his opponent’s campaign. The Dukakis campaign had enjoyed a large early lead over Bush but had ended up losing the lead and winning only 46 percent of the popular vote.

TROY WOLVERTON Hindman reviews a document at a City Council work session.

"Bush said, ‘Running for office is a special experience in life that can’t be appreciated until you’ve actually done it,’" Hindman says. "Bush turned out to be right. It is an amazing experience to run for office."

As mayor, Hindman is enjoying yet another new experience. He has learned to widen his focus from particular interests to a broad general interest in the city.

"The minute a person gets into this office, he begins to experience all sorts of tugs," he says. "You have to address numerous competing concerns and needs."

Hindman says that what he likes about the office is learning about how city government functions from an inside point of view.

"You find out a whole lot about city government that no one who’s not been in city government can begin to appreciate or get to know," he says.

Hindman also says he likes the challenges the office presents.

"They’re exciting to take on."

Family time
Although Hindman is enthusiastic about being mayor, it is evident that he – and Axie – are not always thrilled with the time the office requires. Between representing the community at various events and dinners and his legal career, he no longer has the time to participate in what he calls "discretionary activities."

"This mayor business takes up a lot of time," he says.

Or, as Axie puts it, before he became mayor, they "used to do a lot of things," like walking on the MKT and Katy trails.

Hindman says he thinks Axie misses those "discretionary activities." Although she has gone with him to a number of events where he has represented the city, Hindman says there are many events to which his wife does not get invited. He says there are still others for which his dinner as mayor would be paid, but Axie’s would not be.

"It can be expensive, and we have to pick and choose," he says. "She stays at home quite a bit when I’m gone."

Spending time with his family is important. Skip Hindman says that when he was growing up, his father spent lots of time with him away from his law office. Skip, who, like his father, is a lawyer, says that his father separated his work life from his home life. He would not discuss his work at home and engaged himself in his children’s lives.

"I don’t think there’s any doubt he put his family first," Skip says from his office in Nashville, Tenn. "It only becomes more clear to me now that I am working and practicing law."

When he and his sister were younger, Hindman would take time out to take driving vacations with his family in their 1962 Volkswagen, Skip says. Although they lived during those years first in Mexico and then in Columbia, the family traveled all over the United States, visiting the Everglades in Florida, art exhibits in Chicago and Washington, D.C.

"Now that I am an attorney, looking back on those trips, I wonder how he ever had the time to practice law," Skip says.

Optimistic representative
What Hindman makes time for now is representing the city. And in doing that, he brings to the job his optimism, his hunger for new experience and his love of life.

These aspects of Hindman are on display even when his boxer shorts are not.