(Host) Longtime civic, business and political leader Richard Mallary has died.
VPR’s Ross Sneyd has this remembrance.
(Sneyd) Richard Mallary was unassuming, cheerful and down to earth.
He held many titles over the years: Speaker of the House. Senator. Congressman. Commissioner. And Secretary.
But to everyone who knew him, he was simply Dick. Former Governor Jim Douglas called Mallary the "quintessential Vermonter."
(Douglas) "Dick Mallary really loved Vermont. He worked the land. He cared about its people. He worked hard to fashion policies in Montpelier and Washington that made sense for Vermont, as well as for the country. He was a very nonpartisan Republican. He did what he felt what was right. He didn’t care about winning re-election, he wanted to do what his conscience told him was the right thing to do and that’s something I admire in any public servant."
(Sneyd) Chris Graff has observed Vermont politics for more than three decades.
Graff says Mallary’s public service is notable for the amount of history he witnessed.
(Graff) "Dick Mallary’s time on the public stage in Vermont spanned 60 years and they were 60 years of tremendous change, from the days when Vermont was one of the most Republican states in the nation to now when it’s one of the most Democratic."
(Sneyd) Mallary began his career as a selectman in Fairlee, where he ran a farm.
In 1961, he began his rise through Vermont politics. He served eight years in the Vermont House, two of them as speaker.
He moved on to the state Senate and then won election to Congress, where he served for two terms.
Mallary lost a U.S. Senate election to Patrick Leahy in 1974. He served in the Cabinet and in other positions under three governors. Then in 1999, he decided to run again for a seat in Vermont’s House. He won and served four more years.
His two stints in the House covered two of the most tumultuous debates Vermont lawmakers had in recent generations.
In the mid-‘60s, they approved a reapportionment that reduced the House from an institution that had one member from every town to the one that exists today, with representation based on population.
And he was there in 2000 for the momentous debate over civil unions.
Mallary reflected on his career in 2002 when he was saluted by his colleagues in the House.
(Mallary) "It was interesting because I was the only person in the House when we passed the civil unions bill who had been in the Legislature during the time that reapportionment occurred. And there was a substantial similarity in terms of the emotion and the degree of soul searching that took place in the House in both of those occasions."
(Sneyd) Mallary was one of 15 House Republicans who voted for civil unions and then was defeated for re-election that fall.
Besides his long political career, Mallary also was an executive at a bank, two different utilities and a heating company.
His nephew Peter Mallary says he died yesterday. Dick Mallary was 82.
For VPR News, I’m Ross Sneyd.