N ew Baylor President Ken Starr is a world-renowned celebrity. But what some may not realize is that there is more than one star in the Starr household.
His wife, Alice Starr, is a tireless volunteer and philanthropic leader. She is a respected businesswoman who has served on several nationally known boards. And she has dedicated her adult life to helping the sick and disabled, mentoring students and promoting the arts.
In an exclusive interview, Alice told Waco Today about her past philanthropic ventures, how Ken is her “best friend,” and how faith held the family together during the Whitewater investigation of the Clinton administration.
Alice warmly opened up Albritton House at Baylor for a tour and deep conversation about her life. The visit was complemented with cool peach iced tea and tasty lemon tarts. In the family room, an Edourd Cortes painting of sheep adorns the mantel, a reminder that Ken once raised sheep as a 4-H member. Alice, 61, ever the gracious host, was thoughtful and poised. She skillfully crafted her responses during the two-hour interview and didn’t skirt any issues or fail to answer any questions. She openly discussed her background — which included many public years in Washington — and repeated her newfound love for Waco and its residents. She voiced effervescent optimism about what the Starrs hope to bring to Baylor University and Waco.
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Supportive wife
Alice and Ken have been married for 40 years, so she probably knows her husband better than anyone. Yet despite all of his lofty civic positions and prestigious resume — he was independent counsel for the Whitewater probe in the mid-1990s — she describes him as an all-around nice guy. He’s a hard worker, a devoted father and grandfather, and refers to himself as “Uncle Ken” around students.
The Starrs have three grown children and four grandchildren. Their eldest grandchild, age 5, already reads on a third-grade level. One might surmise that the Starr smarts already have passed on to the next generation.
Although they are in their empty-nest years when one might settle back and relax, they seem to have gained steam. They take on countless civic responsibilities. And in those rare instances when they don’t commit to a job, they still offer their wisdom and advice to anyone who asks.
Most importantly, they are a solid team. They watch each others’ backs. They encourage one another as well as those around them. And they search for ways to spread their faith and beliefs and help the communities in which they live.
“He’s my best friend and one of the nicest people you’ll ever meet,” Alice said of her husband. “So I enjoy when we meet people who have never met him before and they expect him to be this very strict prosecutor with horns on his head, and he ends up being so relaxed and gracious and such a nice person. It’s fun for me to watch people go ‘Oh, I hadn’t expected that.’ ”
Despite all the photographs of their visits with world leaders that adorn their studies, such as pictures of them with President Ronald Reagan, both Bush presidents and former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, the Starrs appear to be quite down-to-earth.
They are both devoted to family. They have a strong faith in God. And they have an overriding sense of public service and duty.
In fact, Alice sees only two “character flaws” in her husband.
“He can’t do anything but tell the truth — ethics are extremely important; and the other is that he has always accepted every job in public service.”
And so has she. Despite running a household and working as vice president of marketing for a large Virginia commercial real estate firm for 16 years, Alice apparently hasn’t turned down many jobs in her lifetime. Most were unpaid volunteer positions.
She has served on the boards of Childhelp USA, which assists victims of child abuse; SongFest, a summer arts program offered at Pepperdine University; the McLean (Va.) Project for the Arts; George Washington’s Mount Vernon Estate & Gardens; and Medical Care for Children’s Partnership, which helps provide medical and dental care for children in Fairfax County, Va. She also is former chair of the Fairfax County Library Foundation. And that’s far from a complete list.
In the mid-1990s while Ken was investigating the Whitewater affair, she was president of the McLean Chamber of Commerce.
When asked why she would take on that public chore from 1995 to 1997 — at a time when her husband was dodging daily media criticisms — she said simply, “My job was to take a dying chamber and revitalize it. ... I just had to press on and do what I had to do.”
Under her leadership, membership increased by 400 percent. The town also built a park, playground and outdoor concert stage.
Working gal
In 2005, the Starrs left Virginia for the Pacific Coast and Pepperdine University in Malibu, Calif., where Ken was named dean of the law school. Alice formed Starr Strategies, a public relations and marketing firm that caters to nonprofit organizations. She is president and CEO of the company, which this summer became Texas-based.
She offices in Albritton House — which was built in 1975 and has been home to all the permanent Baylor presidents ever since. Her office is a bright and tidy room decorated with stunning photos, multiple awards and unique memorabilia, including a Scrabble board that spells out her accomplishments with one nonprofit group. In the corners of the room are two fitness machines, which she uses daily.
When asked why she decided to start this type of business when she could have used her public relations expertise for more profitable endeavors, she said her favorite work experiences have been with nonprofits.
“I just love that work, and I found that most people do not like fundraising and I enjoy it,” she said.
The various communities in which she has lived all have benefited from her devotion to service. And Baylor and Waco also will likely prosper when it comes to fundraising under the Starrs.
Ken, 64, and Alice are co-chairs for a capital campaign to build a respite center in Northern Virginia through the nonprofit group Jill’s House.
Those with mental disabilities can stay there overnight so their families can get a break from the tedium of caring for a disabled loved one. The center is expected to serve 500 families and was scheduled to open in September. With the Starrs’ help, the organization has raised $10 million in recent years to build the facility and is working toward $7 million more to provide services and maintain the site.
Although they have no relatives in need of respite care, the Starrs got involved with this cause after their pastor at McLean Bible Church in Virginia, Lon Solomon, asked for help caring for a disabled daughter, Jill. Alice and Ken were among many parishioners who answered the call. Their pastor then realized that not all families have such extended help networks. As a result, their church formed Access Ministries and began offering respite services to families in Northern Virginia. The group changed names to Jill’s House, and the outreach has grown significantly.
“It’s very difficult on parents,” Alice said. “There is an 80 percent divorce rate of parents with children with severe disabilities. It’s such a hardship. The respite center is so needed because these parents have no break.”
Alice volunteered helping mentally disabled children during her college years. “I’d be exhausted after six hours (of volunteering),” she said. “I couldn’t believe what it would be like to care for someone seven days a week. ... It’s definitely demanding.”
It’s this type of compassion that draws the Starrs to help.
In May, Alice co-chaired and spoke at the 12th Annual Tribute to the Human Spirit Awards Gala at the Beverly Hills Hilton, which raises money for cancer research. The Starrs became involved with this organization after a friend of theirs died of brain cancer, Alice said.
That’s the kind of giant roles she likes to tackle. There seems to be nothing timid or small about Alice Starr, except maybe for her petite frame.
In Waco, she already is on the executive board of the Baylor Round Table. This group includes faculty women and administrators and the wives of faculty and administrators who meet monthly to promote social and cultural life at the university.
She and Ken also are involved with former Waco Mayor Virginia DuPuy’s Greater Waco Education Alliance. They hope to help mentor students as well as encourage Baylor students to tutor in the program.
Alice also has lent her talents to the local Meals and Wheels organization. She is honorary co-chair for the group’s Sweet Sounds fundraiser at 7 p.m. Oct. 2 at the Lee Lockwood Library. The charity serves 1,000 homebound seniors in McLennan, Falls and Hill counties every day. It also operates senior centers and offers transportation services to get the elderly to doctor appointments.
The day of this interview, Alice had just returned from delivering about 20 meals to seniors living in Waco. This isn’t the first time she has helped serve Meals on Wheels, but it was the first time she’s helped in Central Texas. She said the experience was “humbling.”
“It was moving,” Alice said. “One would think that the people I met who receive these meals every day would be acquiesced to it, but they weren’t. They were extremely grateful for the meals provided.”
That’s what she loves most about volunteerism: meeting people and learning something new.
She said a characteristic she and Ken share most is their affinity to meet new people.
Their primary mission here is to promote Baylor. Nevertheless, Alice said she welcomes nonprofit groups to contact her. If she is able or if her schedule allows, she said she will weigh whether she can be of assistance.
“I’ll probably be involved in several ventures here in Waco with different organizations,” she said.
Shining light on Baylor
As Ken Starr was inaugurated Sept. 17 as Baylor’s 14th president, succeeding David E. Garland, one thing became clear about his appointment: The gravitas that he brings to the role will most likely elevate Baylor’s profile, and possibly the school’s coffers. So it doesn’t hurt that his wife has an affinity for fundraising, as well. Together, they could bring a global recognition never before experienced by the school.
“Part of the mission is to let your light shine and to let people know that Baylor is a great educational facility, has a great faculty and teaching staff as well as its mission to be a beacon of light around the world for our students to be able to have opportunities abroad,” Alice said. “In the next few years I imagine we’ll open up some doors for the students and the faculty.”
This summer they hosted a Baylor alumnus from China and have been invited by him to visit Hong Kong. She expects they will do this to explore possible study abroad programs and exchanges for Baylor students.
During the summer, the Starrs went to several send-off parties where incoming freshmen met with alumni and other Baylor students in their hometowns. They attended events in Houston, San Antonio, Washington, D.C., and Amarillo. Alumni are an important element of the parties and help to put nervous parents and students at ease about leaving home, she said.
As Baylor’s homecoming activities get under way in October and many alumni return to Waco, she said they will be encouraged to get involved with future send-off parties.
The Starrs mingle and talk with parents and new students just like at gatherings in Washington, except these events don’t require quite the same attire. Alice admitted her husband doesn’t favor wearing formal clothes. Wearing comfortable clothing and visiting with parents seems a better fit for them.
“They see that we’re just like any parents,” Alice said. “We had three children in college and we understand what their children will be entering into. It’s a wonderful opportunity to grow spiritually and mentally and isn’t that a great thing that Baylor offers? It’s the whole student. We teach values, ethics and working in a community. That’s not necessarily offered at every university. I think parents feel very good about sending their children to Baylor.”
‘This too shall pass’
In reality, the Starrs have not been like just any parents. They have lived very public lives, especially during the Whitewater investigation of the Clinton administration that lasted from 1994 until 1999 and resulted in impeachment proceedings against the president.
That was a grim period and Alice admits it was tough to watch her “best friend” and spouse criticized daily in the media.
In a June 1998 television interview, she said, “It seems like a nightmare that won’t ever go away, and I always think to myself it can’t get worse than this. And it does. Every day it seems to get worse and worse.”
When asked now about how it felt to live through that era, she was briefly taken aback and paused before saying, “That was when the press every single night was hounding him and he could not respond. He was prevented by the law from responding to any of those questions or giving away any information he had. The other side was not prevented from doing that. They could just walk out of court and make anything up, and they did.”
Alice said her husband has never been one to bring the office home with him. Although he is known for arriving at work before 7 a.m. and staying late, she said once he walks in the door, he is “Dad” and is engaged with the family. He and Alice have sit-down meals together (sometimes as late as 9 p.m.). And they talk about anything but the job.
That didn’t stop during Whitewater, although Alice said some days she found it hard to ignore all that was happening around them.
“He’d come home and didn’t even want to talk about it. He wanted to be Dad,” she said. “But that was hard for me because I’d stay up and watch those horrible programs. I wanted to know what he was being accused of and he didn’t want me to talk about it. I also didn’t want him to be blindsided. So I told him I felt it was my duty to keep on top of things.”
Her faith in God and knowing that Ken would seek out the truth got her through those days. “It’s extremely difficult, and the only saving grace is that you know that your spouse has complete integrity and he’s doing things for the right reasons and that this too shall pass,” Alice said.
At the height of this five-year investigation, the New York Times criticized Ken Starr for a speech he made in May 1998. He urged lawyers to take “the moral high ground of Atticus Finch” — the lead character in the classic book “To Kill a Mockingbird.” Ken Starr said the single biggest problem facing lawyers was “loss of respect for the truth.”
For a while, the reference to the book was bantered about in the press. But Alice said her husband has always strived to be like Atticus Finch. “That’s the kind of lawyer he wanted to be. To stand up for the truth and what’s right,” she said. “You can’t worry about what people think about you all the time and that’s truly Atticus Finch. Find the truth wherever it leads you. Sometimes that’s very difficult.”
Alice said she never expected the investigation to last half a decade. But she said her husband was a tireless prosecutor who would fully examine every piece of evidence. “His job was to finish it. He started the independent counsel role and thought it was going to be over in six months, so he didn’t intend to stay in that job for five years,” she said. “Of course he could have stopped any time and said, ‘I’ve had it,’ but that’s not in his DNA and not in my DNA.”
An ‘unusual match’
What is in their DNA is a perpetual need to finish what is started and to serve the public. They certainly hold that in common.
But how the former Alice Mendell, a Jewish girl from Mamaroneck, N.Y., attending Skidmore College, ever began dating the son of a Church of Christ minister from San Antonio, is a story for posterity.
They met at a summer Spanish class at Harvard University. Alice said Ken was the first Texan she had ever met. And she concedes,
“It was a very unusual match.”
Ken was about to finish his degree and start law school. “We just hit it off right from the get-go,” she said.
Ken had strong religious ties and values, and Alice said she happily converted to Christianity. “I didn’t grow up in a particularly religious family. So I was happy to become a Christian when I met him and raise our children Christian,” she said.
They have three grown children: son Randy Starr, 33, and daughters Carolyn Doolittle, 30, and Cynthia Starr, 25. All of their children also have been heavily involved in community service.
Randy is chief development officer for TopGolf USA, a golf entertainment company, and lives in Chicago with his wife Melina. In high school, Randy earned a prestigious Congressional Scholarship that required him to perform at least 20 hours of public service per week as a teen. Most were spent volunteering to revitalize a historic Virginia park.
Carolyn is a Stanford University graduate, former second-grade teacher and mother to reading standout Grace, 5, as well as Christiana, 3, Hewson, 2, and Sandhana, 11 months. Carolyn took to teaching after years of mentoring youths and helping them learn to read. Her husband, Cameron Doolittle, is a financial consultant for churches and is financial director for Jill’s House. The family lives in Falls Church, Va.
Cynthia graduated from Vanderbilt University in 2007 and has worked in real estate and for a New York City law firm. Like her sister and mother, she also spent many years helping children with disabilities.
Ken and Alice both are avid about exercise. Ken runs four miles a day (on a treadmill in the Texas summers). She prefers the elliptical machine and stationary bike.
For vacations, they take exotic bicycling trips. In France last month, they planned to bicycle about 35 to 40 miles per day with nine other couples. At the end of every day on such a vacation, they retreat to a nice hotel, hearty meal, luxuriating bath and awaken to do it all again.
“It’s all in fun and a social occasion and getting exercise, too, and is a way to get together with friends we have known for 30 years,” she said.
They have taken bicycling trips throughout the United States, including Maine and California. They’ve also visited Italy, Ireland and France. But this is only something they have taken up since they’ve been empty nesters. When their children were young, they took family trips together. The bicycle trips also are a way for the Starrs to meet people.
Now they hope to meet many new friends through Baylor’s extended family.
“Family is extremely important to both Ken and I, and we have a very close-knit family,” Alice said. “We’re very proud of them. I’m proud of Ken and all that he stands for, and we’re very much looking forward to spending time with people here at Baylor and making sure it’s a tremendous experience for the students and faculty and administrators. ... They are so important and intertwined in the life of this wonderful university. Please come up and say hello and don’t be shy. We’d like to meet everybody.”