Huckabee visits Midland

Mike Huckabee spoke on family values and limited government Tuesday night for the Centers for Children and Families' seventh annual "An Evening With" event in Midland.

"I believe in limited government but strong families," Mike Huckabee told to a room of more than 800 guests. "The best government of all is self government."

Almost every table at The Midland County Horseshoe was filled.

"We are big supporters of Mike Huckabee," Odessan Mike Trout said. The Trouts said they were looking forward to his speech and the good food.

Melanie Lancaster's whole family is from Arkansas. She was looking forward to Huckabee's rumored humor.

"I heard he was really funny," Lancaster said.

Other guests included the First Lady's mother, Jenna Welch.

Barn Door catered the event, and yes, big blocks of cheese were available. After everyone filled their plates the speech began.

The original speaker was Tony Snow, a former colleague and friend of Mike Huckabee's, said emcee Tatum Hubbard. He died July 12 after a long battle with colon cancer.

Midland County Judge Mike Bradford introduced Huckabee.

The first half of the speech Huckabee joked about people not remembering who he was anymore since he dropped out of the presidential race.

"The shelf life for notoriety is not long," he said.

It wasn't long before the tone of the speech turned serious. He recently visited Rwanda, and saw the desperate conditions people can live in. "I'm now thankful," he said.

"We forget how blessed we really are, but must protect what is good about the country," he said. "The Centers for Children and Families protects that."

Huckabee said that in order to have a great country the real work must go on in the home. Government can't do what moms and dads can do, he said. When there's not a stable home, then places like CCF offer a safety net.

"Without CCF a child's life would not only not be fulfilled, but could be trouble to the community," he said.

In Huckabee's hypothetical utopian town, "Hucktown", everyone would live by the Golden Rule, "Do unto others as you would have done to you," and there would be no need for laws.

"There would be no problems there, because people live by simple world code," he said.

This is not the case in the real world; centers like CCF can intervene and help, he said.

Huckabee ended the speech with a story about a trip his family took to Israel. They went to Israel to the Holocaust memorial. The memorial deeply affected his daughter, who was 11 at the time. She spent three hours in silence after writing "Why didn't somebody do something?" on a piece of paper.

That was a moment that Huckabee said he will never forget, and concluded the theme to his speech.

"We have a personal responsibility," he said.

"Thank you for willing to do something for local kids with local money," Huckabee said.

WHO'S WHO

"An Evening With ..." is one of the Centers for Children and Families' largest fund-raisers of the year.

This year marks the seventh time for the event.

>> Lisa Welchel from "The Facts of Life."

>> Henry Winkler, "the Fonz" from "Happy Days."

>> Melissa Gilbert, "Laura Ingalls" from "The Little House on the Prarie."

>> Michael Reagan, adopted son of President Ronald Reagan.

>> Jim Morris, "The Rookie"

>> Kurt Warner, NFL MVP.

>> Mike Huckabee, former presidential candidate as stand-in for journalist and presidential media adviser Tony Snow, who died earlier this year.