Jo Ann Burgess
My name is Jo Ann Burgess. I have been working at Mason since 1989, upon my return from Costa Rica, where my family had been stationed with the U. S. Department of State. I have worked in news and public affairs programming for public television, covering political conventions and airing special events programming, Washington Week in Review, the McNeil/Lehrer Report [NewsHour], and gavel-to-gavel coverage of the Watergate hearings. I have lived in Laos, China, Russia, Denmark, and Costa Rica, working for either the State Department or the U.S. military. As the ancient Chinese curse goes, I have lived through some interesting times. I have been in two revolutions, chased by soldiers with machine guns, flown on Air America, lived through one of the most devastating earthquakes of all time, and have been evacuated on more than one occasion. I have met a king, a queen, two U.S. presidents, several vice presidents and secretaries of state, senators and congressmen, astronauts, and American and foreign entertainers. My husband and I have four wonderful children, and our sixth grandchild is expected in October. Sadly, my husband was only able to greet the first grandchild before he passed away in 2009.
I joined the staff of the Center for Study of Public Choice in 1989. At the time, Robert Tollison was the director and Betty Tillman was Professor Buchanan’s personal assistant. Carow Hall was then known as St. George’s Hall (later George’s Hall). We parked on a dirt and gravel road just in front of the tree line that extended to Roberts Road. The campus was intimate; the phone book was small and included the home addresses and telephone numbers of faculty and staff.
I was originally hired to prepare Professor Buchanan’s papers for presentation, a job that was later expanded to include publication. I have been the primary agent on every book Professor Buchanan has published since I joined the staff, including the twenty-volume series, The Collected Works of James M. Buchanan, published by Liberty Fund. In total I have worked on over thirty books and more than three hundred papers and can probably cite chapter and verse from the Chicago Manual of Style.
Since 2003 I have run the annual Public Choice Society conference in various cities around the U. S. The program includes two and one-half days of numbered sessions, two, three, or four plenary speakers/sessions, a luncheon for all attendees, and a cocktail reception. This year we commemorated the fiftieth anniversary of The Calculus of Consent: Logical Foundations of Constitutional Democracy by James M. Buchanan and Gordon Tullock, and honored the passing of William Niskanen, a past president and well-known national figure from the CATO Institute.
I am currently designing two databases, processing a spring visitor, and preparing for the Toby Davis lecture in October. Professor Buchanan is still writing, publishing, and speaking. Within the next few weeks, we expect to have a book proposal ready to present to publishers, and in two weeks he will attend a Liberty Fund colloquium in Charlottesville, Virginia.
There have been many great memories since I joined the staff. The most memorable were the Virginia Political Economy lectures and the formal birthday celebrations for Professor Buchanan and Betty Tillman, especially his ninetieth on the back lawn. Hot summer days were a perfect backdrop for the give and take meeting of Warren Samuels and James Buchanan at the Summer Institute. The eager Outreach students’ faces, and so on. I am truly fortunate to have been able to be a part of this dynamic group of people.