U students and faculty are now able to check out personal notes written by President Clinton and flight certificates from Air Force One by visiting the Marriott Library.
Mickey Ibarra, former assistant to Clinton, donated his personal files from his time in the White House to the library earlier this month. Mickey Ibarra, who was the vice-chair of the White House Task Force on the Salt Lake City 2002 Olympic Games, also donated rare government documents and papers from the Olympics.
Mickey Ibarra said he donated the documents because he wanted to preserve an important part of presidential history.
“I wanted to protect that window of history that I had the privilege of being part of,” said Mickey Ibarra, who is a U alumnus. “I wanted it to be a useful tool that students can use.”
Before they were put into the special collections, Mickey Ibarra said the papers had been sitting in a storage unit in Rockville, Md. since the day he left the White House in 2001.
“After six years of storage, I figured it was about time to put them somewhere where they were appreciated,” Mickey Ibarra said. “I also didn’t want them to be lost or destroyed.”
The donation also included photographs of Mickey Ibarra briefing Clinton in the Oval Office. During his time in the Clinton administration, Mickey Ibarra served as the director of intergovernmental affairs.
Mickey Ibarra, along with his brother David Ibarra, created the Ibarra Foundation, which provided three scholarships for the U Chicano Scholarship Fund last year and is one of the largest donations the Chicano organization has ever received.
During the U’s spring commencement ceremony, Mickey Ibarra received an honorary degree of Doctor of Human Letters from the U. He currently serves on the national board of Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund.
Mickey Ibarra said he is trying to create a Mickey Ibarra section in the Special Collection area of the library before the next president is inaugurated in 2009. He said the documents could help students become better informed before they vote for the next president.