Ralph Albert Foote was a Vermont

Vermont

Vermont is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state ranks 43rd in land area, , and 45th in total area. Its population according to the 2010 census, 630,337, is the second smallest in the country, larger only than Wyoming. It is the only New England...

 Lieutenant Governor

Lieutenant governor

A lieutenant governor or lieutenant-governor is a high officer of state, whose precise role and rank vary by jurisdiction, but is often the deputy or lieutenant to or ranking under a governor — a "second-in-command"...

, 1961–1965, and a prominent attorney

Lawyer

A lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person who is practicing law." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain the stability of political...

 practicing in Middlebury, Vermont. Foote was a graduate of Amherst College

Amherst College

Amherst College is a private liberal arts college located in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. Amherst is an exclusively undergraduate four-year institution and enrolled 1,744 students in the fall of 2009...

 and the Union Law School.

He was married for more than 50 years to Nancy Dickey Foote. They had five sons.

Elected Lt. Governor first in 1960, he served under F. Ray Keyser, Jr.

F. Ray Keyser, Jr.

Frank Ray Keyser is a former American politician from Vermont, serving as the 72nd Governor of Vermont from 1961 to 1963....

  Both were Republicans

Republican Party (United States)

The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...

. When Keyser lost the governorship to Philip H. Hoff

Philip H. Hoff

Philip Henderson Hoff is an American politician from the U.S. state of Vermont where he served as the 73rd Governor of Vermont from 1963 to 1969. At the time of his election, he was the first Democrat elected Governor of Vermont in 108 years.-Life and career:Hoff was born in Turners Falls,...

 in 1962, Foote won re-election as Lt. Governor. In 1964 Foote challenged Hoff but lost badly in the "Goldwater Landslide

Barry Goldwater

Barry Morris Goldwater was a five-term United States Senator from Arizona and the Republican Party's nominee for President in the 1964 election. An articulate and charismatic figure during the first half of the 1960s, he was known as "Mr...

".

Foote spent the rest of his career at the law firm of Conley and Foote in Middlebury, VT.