Wayne Townsend

W. Wayne Townsend (May 1, 1926 July 3, 2015) was an American politician from the U.S. state of Indiana. A Democrat, he was his party's gubernatorial nominee in 1984. Townsend was defeated by the incumbent Republican Governor Robert D. Orr.

Wayne Townsend
Member of the Indiana Senate
from the 19th district
In office
November 8, 1972  November 5, 1986
Preceded byJohn Mutz[1]
Succeeded byLarry David Macklin
Member of the Indiana Senate
from the 13th district
In office
November 4, 1970  November 8, 1972
Preceded byFrank James Biddinger[2]
Succeeded byJohn Frederick Augsburger
Member of the
Indiana House of Representatives
from Blackford County and Grant County
In office
November 7, 1962  November 9, 1966
Preceded byRay Manual Hickam[3]
Succeeded byRoger Lee Jessup
In office
November 5, 1958  November 9, 1960
Preceded byJames O. Murrell
Succeeded byRay Manual Hickam
Personal details
Born(1926-05-01)May 1, 1926
Grant County, Indiana, U.S.
DiedJuly 3, 2015(2015-07-03) (aged 89)
South Haven, Michigan, U.S.
Political partyDemocratic
Spouse(s)Helen
RelationsM. Clifford Townsend (grandfather)
Childrenfive
ResidenceHartford City, Indiana
Alma materPurdue University (1951)
Occupationfarmer

Biography

Townsend was born on May 1, 1926, on the family farm in Grant County, Indiana, near the town of Upland.[4] A farmer from Hartford City, Indiana, he was the grandson of Indiana Governor M. Clifford Townsend.

Townsend received 1,036,832 ballots (47.2 percent of the two-party vote) to Orr's 1,146,497 (52.8 percent). Townsend ran 195,351 votes ahead of his party's presidential nominee, former Vice President of the United States Walter F. Mondale of Minnesota.[5]

In January 1977, Townsend, then a member of the Indiana State Senate, cast the tie-breaking vote to ratify the proposed Equal Rights Amendment. The Senate had been deadlocked 25-25 on ERA. First Lady Rosalynn Smith Carter telephoned Townsend and urged him to switch his vote. Townsend did accordingly change his vote, and the ERA passed, 26-24. Indiana became the 35th and final state to ratify the controversial amendment, which was opposed by a grassroots organization headed by conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly, then of Illinois. Thirty-eight states are required for ratification of a constitutional amendment.[6]

Townsend and former U.S. Senator Birch Evans Bayh, Jr., were classmates at Purdue University in West Lafayette. In 1980, Bayh was unseated by Dan Quayle, as Reagan-Bush electors first carried Indiana. Until 2004, Townsend was a Purdue trustee. In 2007, he received the Frank O'Bannon Public Service Award, named for the former Democratic governor of Indiana who died in office in 2003. In 2004, Townsend, a veteran crusader for liberal causes, was an advocate for presidential hopeful Howard Dean of Vermont, who thereafter became the chairman of the Democratic National Committee.[7]

Townsend began farming in 1951 on a 225-acre (0.9 km2) tract, subsequently extended to a 2,200-acre (9 km2) operation near Hartford City, the seat of Blackford County in east central Indiana. The farm spills over into neighboring Grant County. Townsend Farms maintains some 2,400 hogs and ships some 1,000 per week to the market.[8]

At the age of thirty-two, Townsend was first elected to the Indiana House of Representatives in 1958, a heavily Democratic year nationally. Thereafter, he was elevated to the State Senate. He is a firm advocate of public education, having served on the team that worked for passage of the School Reorganization Act of 1959 and its reauthorization in 1965. Townsend recalls that his late father peppered conversations at the kitchen table with discussion of national and world affairs. Education was rooted in Townsend's upbringing even though neither of his parents went beyond the eighth grade. Despite limited family resources, Townsend completed a degree in agriculture at Purdue. He was also for eight years a trustee of Earlham College, a Quaker institution in Richmond, Indiana, before he was invited to join the Purdue board.[9]

In 2006, Townsend campaigned for his nephew, Joseph R. "Joe" Pearson (born 1943), a Democrat who unsuccessfully challenged Republican Secretary of State Todd Rokita, who won a second term.[10] Pearson, also from Hartford City, graduated from Ball State University in Muncie with a doctorate in education. Townsend declared that Pearson is "cut from the same cloth" as former Senator Bayh and former U.S. Representative Lee H. Hamilton of Indiana, the co-chairman of the 9-11 Commission. Prior to his failed statewide race, Pearson had been the assistant commissioner of agriculture under Governor Evan Bayh (now U.S. senator and son of Birch Bayh), and then Governors O'Bannon and Joe Kernan.[11] In 2008 Joe Pearson was elected into the Indiana House of Representatives.

Townsend's son, Mark W. Townsend (born 1955), was named to the Purdue board effective July 1, 2004, to succeed his father. He served until June 30, 2007. Since 1979, Mark Townsend has managed and co-owned Townsend Farms.[8] Wayne Townsend, meanwhile, remains a Purdue benefactor.[12] Townsend's other son, Jay, was a 2010 Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate in New York.

Townsend died on July 3, 2015 while on a family trip to Michigan.[13] He had amyloidosis, a heart condition.[14]

References

  1. http://www.capitolandwashington.com/offices/all-offices/219/
  2. http://www.capitolandwashington.com/offices/all-offices/213/
  3. http://www.capitolandwashington.com/offices/all-offices/h5/
  4. Wayne Townsend-obituary
  5. Congressional Quarterly's Guide to U.S. Elections, 2005 edition
  6. Donald T. Critchlow, Phyllis Schlafly and Grassroots Conservatism, Princeton University Press, 2005, p. 244; "Rosalynn Carter Helps Pass Equal Rights in Indiana, The Loraine Journal, Jan. 19, 1977
  7. Ballot and Bios for Candidates | Indiana Progressives
  8. Purdue University - Board of Trustees - Trustees
  9. "Distinguished AgEcon Alumni". purdue.edu.
  10. "Secretary of State : Election Division: Election Results". in.gov.
  11. decaturdailydemocrat.com/index.php?...&task=view&id=168&Itemid=27
  12. "Students to debate the future of Indiana's rural economy". purdue.edu.
  13. "Former state senator Wayne Townsend dies". journalgazette.net.
  14. "Wayne Townsend, senator who supported equal rights for women, dies". Indianapolis Star. 3 July 2015.
Party political offices
Preceded by
John A. Hillenbrand II
Democratic nominee for Governor of Indiana
1984
Succeeded by
Evan Bayh
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