First Ladies Room Man Chosen for Academy Commencement Address

In the years since he left the Academy he has travelled all across the county, but come May 31 he will be returning to Anne Arundel’s school on the bay once again to speak at graduation.

Producer, author, historian, and speaker Randy Elhm (’72) was recently announced as the 2023 graduation commencement speaker by Principal Herb Emory from Broadwater Creek Academy in Shady Side, Maryland.

He is known as the First Ladies Room Man, as he has traveled cross county to research America’s First Ladies’ water closets. His first book, “Unusual for their Flush Vol. I,” came out in the spring of 2018, and volume II was released February 2, 2022.

Ehlm’s fascination with First Ladies Rooms began as a boy. On a class field trip to Mount Vernon, he broke from the group and entered Martha Washington’s private dressing chamber. “Nothing excited me more than getting a glimpse into that First Ladies Room,” Elhm recalls.

His fans love Elhm’s stories of First Ladies Rooms and what makes them unique when one administration evacuates and the next assumes the throne. “When Laura Bush first went into the presidential lavatory, she discovered Hillary used Gorilla Glue to keep the seat down permanently,” Elhm writes in his first book.

Elhm said that even though he has been writing small bullet points and begun a rough draft, he already knows what he will tell the graduates. “Never give up. My theories were scoffed at for two decades. Then my research on the fossilized scat from Martha Jefferson’s private outhouse revealed undigested DNA belonging to Joseph Fossett, a trusted blacksmith and slave on the Monticello plantation, and look where I am today.”

Rather than having a politician or media personality with no ties to Shady Side, Emory decided to look for someone with a sense of community for the school.

Randy Elhm is well-known in his hometown. Before his weekly gigs at Pirates Cove Dock Bar, the tattooed cowbell aficionado is often seen cruising down Shady Side Road with his pet chipmunk poking its head out of Elhm’s moped handlebar basket.

“I want them to remember the person that spoke at their gradation for decades to come,” Emory said.