“Humor’s a way to break the ice and to make people feel more relaxed, so it’s appropriate in a lot of circumstances,” she said.

Leaning forward in her chair, and hands folded on the table, a multi-colored watch brightens up Simon’s left wrist.

“I pretend it goes with everything I wear,” she says. “It’s my only watch. When I swim laps in the pool, it goes with me.”

A former high jumper in high school and college, Simon also trains for a small triathlon in Carbondale during the spring. She says she also tries to stay active and bike with Perry “when the weather’s good.”

Knop, department chair and professor of political science at John A. Logan College in Cartersville, is excited that she will bring “a certain accessibility” to the office.

“She connects with people. She’s not stuffy, never has been. She’s real authentic and it’s kind of fun to see her in this position doing what she does best.”

The two met at an Adlai Stevenson III campaign event event in Riverside Park in Murphysboro in 1986.

“I was working for a public interest group and she was at that time finishing up her third year of law school,” Knop said while on a stroll with Illinois Times around the Capitol building. He had worked for her father, Paul Simon, years before and said he walked up and introduced himself to her.

“We started talking and before you know it we decided to go out. That was a Sunday we met and we went out on a Thursday, and 10 days later, we decided to get married,” he says.

The pair married the following September.

“We’ve been married 23 years and this is our biggest challenge yet,” Simon says.

Contact Holly Dillemuth at [email protected].