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US Secretary of Fun

How Desiree Rogers is shaking up the White House.

Who brought Earth, Wind and Fire to the Obamas’ first formal dinner? Honored Stevie Wonder at the White House? And—gasp—served a black-tie governors’ dinner with mixed-place china settings? It was stylish social secretary Desiree Rogers, who sat down with the Chicago Tribune to dish on how she’s making the White House “the people’s house.” (Answer: by inviting ordinary citizens chosen by lottery and with events like an “egalitarian ball celebrating ordinary Americans” and poetry slams.) The Tribune calls Rogers’ (and the Obamas’) style “livelier than the Bushes, more hip than the Reagans, more multicultural than the Clintons and more accessible than the Kennedys.”