Wayne Townsend
Encyclopedia
W. Wayne Townsend is a Hartford City
farmer
and Democratic
politician
from the U.S. state
of Indiana
who was his party's gubernatorial nominee in 1984. Townsend was defeated by the incumbent
Republican
Governor
Robert D. Orr
in a year in which Indiana joined forty-eight other states in reelecting the Reagan-Bush ticket.
Wayne 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
.
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
.
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
.
Townsend began farming in 1951 on a 225 acre (0.9105435 km²) tract, subsequently extended to a 2200 acres (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.
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.
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. 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. 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. Wayne Townsend, meanwhile, remains a Purdue benefactor.
Townsend's other son, Jay, is a 2010 Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate in New York
.
Hartford City, Indiana
Hartford City is a city in the U.S. state of Indiana, and the county seat of Blackford County. Located in the northeast central portion of the state, the small farming community experienced a 15-year “boom” beginning in the late 1880s...
farmer
Farmer
A farmer is a person engaged in agriculture, who raises living organisms for food or raw materials, generally including livestock husbandry and growing crops, such as produce and grain...
and Democratic
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
politician
Politician
A politician, political leader, or political figure is an individual who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making...
from the U.S. state
U.S. state
A U.S. state is any one of the 50 federated states of the United States of America that share sovereignty with the federal government. Because of this shared sovereignty, an American is a citizen both of the federal entity and of his or her state of domicile. Four states use the official title of...
of Indiana
Indiana
Indiana is a US state, admitted to the United States as the 19th on December 11, 1816. It is located in the Midwestern United States and Great Lakes Region. With 6,483,802 residents, the state is ranked 15th in population and 16th in population density. Indiana is ranked 38th in land area and is...
who was his party's gubernatorial nominee in 1984. Townsend was defeated by the incumbent
Incumbent
The incumbent, in politics, is the existing holder of a political office. This term is usually used in reference to elections, in which races can often be defined as being between an incumbent and non-incumbent. For example, in the 2004 United States presidential election, George W...
Republican
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...
Governor
Governor
A governor is a governing official, usually the executive of a non-sovereign level of government, ranking under the head of state...
Robert D. Orr
Robert D. Orr
Robert Dunkerson Orr was an American political leader and the 45th Governor of Indiana from 1981 to 1989. He was a member of the Republican Party.-Early life:...
in a year in which Indiana joined forty-eight other states in reelecting the Reagan-Bush ticket.
Wayne was the grandson of Indiana Governor M. Clifford Townsend
M. Clifford Townsend
Maurice Clifford Townsend was the 35th Governor of the U.S. state of Indiana from 1937 to 1941. During his term he led relief efforts during and after the Great Flood of 1937.-Early life:...
.
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
Vice President of the United States
The Vice President of the United States is the holder of a public office created by the United States Constitution. The Vice President, together with the President of the United States, is indirectly elected by the people, through the Electoral College, to a four-year term...
Walter F. Mondale of Minnesota
Minnesota
Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...
.
In January 1977, Townsend, then a member of the Indiana State Senate, cast the tie-breaking vote to ratify the proposed Equal Rights Amendment
Equal Rights Amendment
The Equal Rights Amendment was a proposed amendment to the United States Constitution. The ERA was originally written by Alice Paul and, in 1923, it was introduced in the Congress for the first time...
. The Senate had been deadlocked 25-25 on ERA. First Lady
First Lady
First Lady or First Gentlemanis the unofficial title used in some countries for the spouse of an elected head of state.It is not normally used to refer to the spouse or partner of a prime minister; the husband or wife of the British Prime Minister is usually informally referred to as prime...
Rosalynn Smith Carter
Rosalynn Carter
Eleanor Rosalynn Carter is the wife of the former President of the United States Jimmy Carter and in that capacity served as the First Lady of the United States from 1977 to 1981. As First Lady and after, she has been a leading advocate for numerous causes, perhaps most prominently for mental...
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
Phyllis Schlafly
Phyllis McAlpin Stewart Schlafly is a Constitutional lawyer and an American politically conservative activist and author who founded the Eagle Forum. She is known for her opposition to modern feminism ideas and for her campaign against the proposed Equal Rights Amendment...
, then of Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
. Thirty-eight states are required for ratification of a constitutional amendment
Constitutional amendment
A constitutional amendment is a formal change to the text of the written constitution of a nation or state.Most constitutions require that amendments cannot be enacted unless they have passed a special procedure that is more stringent than that required of ordinary legislation...
.
Townsend and former U.S. Senator Birch Evans Bayh, Jr.
Birch Bayh
Birch Evans Bayh II is a former United States Senator from Indiana, having served from 1963 to 1981. He was a candidate for the Democratic nomination for president in the 1976 election, but lost to Jimmy Carter. He is the father of former Indiana Governor and former U.S. Senator Evan Bayh.-Life...
, were classmates at Purdue University
Purdue University
Purdue University, located in West Lafayette, Indiana, U.S., is the flagship university of the six-campus Purdue University system. Purdue was founded on May 6, 1869, as a land-grant university when the Indiana General Assembly, taking advantage of the Morrill Act, accepted a donation of land and...
in West Lafayette
West Lafayette, Indiana
As of the census of 2010, there were 29,596 people, 12,591 households, and 3,588 families residing in the city. The population density was 5,381.1 people per square mile . The racial makeup of the city was 74.3% White, 17.3% Asian, 2.7% African American, 0.16% Native American, 0.03% Pacific...
. In 1980, Bayh was unseated by Dan Quayle
Dan Quayle
James Danforth "Dan" Quayle served as the 44th Vice President of the United States, serving with President George H. W. Bush . He served as a U.S. Representative and U.S. Senator from the state of Indiana....
, as Reagan-Bush electors first carried Indiana. Until 2004, Townsend was a Purdue trustee. In 2007, he received the Frank O'Bannon
Frank O'Bannon
Frank Lewis O'Bannon was an American politician who was the 47th Governor of Indiana from 1997 until his death in 2003.-Background:...
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
Liberalism
Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...
causes, was an advocate for presidential hopeful Howard Dean
Howard Dean
Howard Brush Dean III is an American politician and physician from Vermont. He served six terms as the 79th Governor of Vermont and ran unsuccessfully for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination. He was chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 2005 to 2009. Although his U.S...
of 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...
, who thereafter became the chairman of the Democratic National Committee
Democratic National Committee
The Democratic National Committee is the principal organization governing the United States Democratic Party on a day to day basis. While it is responsible for overseeing the process of writing a platform every four years, the DNC's central focus is on campaign and political activity in support...
.
Townsend began farming in 1951 on a 225 acre (0.9105435 km²) tract, subsequently extended to a 2200 acres (9 km²) operation near Hartford City, the seat of Blackford County
Blackford County, Indiana
Blackford County is located in the east central portion of the U.S. state of Indiana. The county is named for Judge Isaac Blackford, who was the first speaker of the Indiana General Assembly and a long-time chief justice of the Indiana Supreme Court. Created in 1838, Blackford County is divided...
in east central Indiana. The farm spills over into neighboring Grant County
Grant County, Indiana
Grant County is a county located in the U.S. state of Indiana. As of the 2010 census, the population was 70,061. The county seat is Marion. Important paleontological discoveries dating from the Pliocene epoch have been made at Pipe Creek Sinkhole in Grant County.-Geography:According to the 2010...
. Townsend Farms maintains some 2,400 hogs and ships some 1,000 per week to the market.
At the age of thirty-two, Townsend was first elected to the Indiana House of Representatives
Indiana House of Representatives
The Indiana House of Representatives is the lower house of the Indiana General Assembly, the state legislature of the U.S. state of Indiana. The House is composed of 100 members representing an equal number of constituent districts. House members serve two-year terms without term limits...
in 1958, a heavily Democratic year nationally. Thereafter, he was elevated to the State Senate. He is a firm advocate of public education
Public education
State schools, also known in the United States and Canada as public schools,In much of the Commonwealth, including Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and the United Kingdom, the terms 'public education', 'public school' and 'independent school' are used for private schools, that is, schools...
, 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
Kitchen
A kitchen is a room or part of a room used for cooking and food preparation.In the West, a modern residential kitchen is typically equipped with a stove, a sink with hot and cold running water, a refrigerator and kitchen cabinets arranged according to a modular design. Many households have a...
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
Earlham College
Earlham College is a liberal arts college in Richmond, Indiana. It was founded in 1847 by Quakers and has approximately 1,200 students.The president is John David Dawson...
, a Quaker institution in Richmond, Indiana
Richmond, Indiana
Richmond is a city largely within Wayne Township, Wayne County, in east central Indiana, United States, which borders Ohio. The city also includes the Richmond Municipal Airport, which is in Boston Township and separated from the rest of the city...
, before he was invited to join the Purdue board.
In 2006, Townsend campaigned for his nephew, Joseph R. "Joe" Pearson (born 1943), a Democrat who unsuccessfully challenged Republican Secretary of State Todd Rokita
Todd Rokita
Theodore Edward "Todd" Rokita is the U.S. Representative for . He is a member of the Republican Party. He is formerly the two term Secretary of State of Indiana...
, who won a second term. Pearson, also from Hartford City, graduated from Ball State University
Ball State University
Ball State University is a state-run research university located in Muncie, Indiana. It is also known as Ball State or simply BSU.Located on the northwest side of the city, Ball State's campus spans and includes 106 buildings...
in Muncie
Muncie, Indiana
Muncie is a city in Center Township, Delaware County in east central Indiana, best known as the home of Ball State University and the birthplace of the Ball Corporation. It is the principal city of the Muncie, Indiana, Metropolitan Statistical Area, which has a population of 118,769...
with a doctorate in education
Education
Education in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...
. Townsend declared that Pearson is "cut from the same cloth" as former Senator Bayh and former U.S. Representative Lee H. Hamilton
Lee H. Hamilton
Lee Herbert Hamilton is a former member of the United States House of Representatives and currently a member of the U.S. Homeland Security Advisory Council. A member of the Democratic Party, Hamilton represented the 9th congressional district of Indiana from 1965 to 1999...
of Indiana, the co-chairman of the 9-11 Commission. Prior to his failed statewide race, Pearson had been the assistant commissioner of agriculture
Agriculture
Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...
under Governor Evan Bayh
Evan Bayh
Birch Evans "Evan" Bayh III is a lawyer, advisor and former Democratic politician who served as the junior U.S. Senator from Indiana from 1999 to 2011. He earlier served as the 46th Governor of Indiana from 1989 to 1997. Bayh is a current Fox News contributor as of March 14, 2011.Bayh first held...
(now U.S. senator and son of Birch Bayh), and then Governors O'Bannon and Joe Kernan. 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. Wayne Townsend, meanwhile, remains a Purdue benefactor.
Townsend's other son, Jay, is a 2010 Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
.