He beat me to it, lol.
There are some follow-up articles, though.
Somehow, even though I wasn't living in Michigan at the time he lost to Jim
Blanchard, I do remember Blanchard's schnarky ad "Michigan Doesn't Need Four
More
Years of Smilin' Bill Milliken."
Oh, now, for those days when politicians could be respected, and were much
kinder,
gentler, and upstanding members of society.
Steve
----- Original Message -----
From: Marcia Moses
To: msb-alumni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Friday, October 18, 2019 9:10 PM
Subject: [msb-alumni] Re: Fwd: Article from Detroit Free Press News Section
2019 10
18
Fred, thanks for sharing although you weren't supposed to, smile.
Marcia
From: msb-alumni-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <msb-alumni-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On
Behalf Of
Fred Olver
Sent: Friday, October 18, 2019 8:59 PM
To: MSB <msb-alumni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [msb-alumni] Fwd: Article from Detroit Free Press News Section 2019 10
18
Sent from my iPhone
Begin forwarded message:
From: NFB-NEWSLINE Online <publications@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: October 18, 2019 at 7:55:30 PM CDT
To: Fred Olver <fredolver@xxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Article from Detroit Free Press News Section 2019 10 18
Former Michigan Governor William Milliken dies at 97 Paul Egan , Detroit
Free
Press William Milliken, who was Michigan's longest-serving governor and a
champion
for Detroit, the environment, and a far more moderate Republican Party, died
Friday.
He was 97. Milliken, who was governor from 1969 to? 1983, was a World War II
air
combat veteran, a retailer, state senator, and lieutenant governor (to George
Romney), all before becoming Michigan's 44th governor. Milliken died at 5:30
p.m.
Friday in the Traverse City home he built himself, 60 years ago, said Jack
Lessenberry, a spokesman for the family. He had been under hospice care. "He
was one
of the nicest men you will ever meet," said Bill Rustem, who was a 20-year-old
MSU
student when he became a Milliken intern and went on to become a spokesman,
speech
writer and policy adviser to the former governor. "It was an age of civility
when
compromise was not a bad word, and when you listened, instead of shouted,"
Rustem
said. "He'll be remembered both in Michigan and across the country as one of
the
people who helped pull the nation into a new era of environmental
responsibility.
Barring a change to the state constitution, which since the 1990s limits
governors to
two four-year terms, Milliken's record 14 years as governor of Michigan will
never be
surpassed. He was also the oldest ex-governor in state history, surpassing the
record
of Alpheus Finch, who served briefly as governor before the Civil War and died
much
later at age 91. After leaving office, he rejected the rightward turn of the
GOP and
expressed regret at the bitterness and divisiveness of public life. "Today,
politics
is very mean and nasty. It just doesn't serve the public as well as it should,"
he
said in 2014. During his years in office, Milliken "shunned the extremes and
sought
to govern from the center," wrote Michigan environmentalist Dave Dempsey in his
2006
biography, "William Milliken: Michigan's Passionate Moderate. He was known as a
champion of Detroit and the state's environment, working closely with the late
former
Detroit Mayor Coleman Young, and pushing for Michigan's bottle deposit law,
among
other initiatives. He made Michigan the first state to ban PCBs
(polychlorinated
biphenyls), which were widely used in electrical transformers and linked to
cancer,
and DDT, a pesticide harmful to wildlife and humans. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer
praised
Milliken? as "a true statesman who led our state with integrity and honor," and
a man
with "a unique ability to bring people from both sides of the aisle together
for the
betterment of Michigan. Milliken grew up in Traverse City, where his family
owned
Milliken's department stores, which had three stores in the region but no
longer
exists.? He ran the family business after graduating from Yale University.
During
World War II, Milliken? flew 50 combat missions and survived two crash
landings. He?
was awarded a Purple Heart. Once an active runner, Milliken remained an active
walker
around Traverse City after a bad back caused him to slow his pace, when he was
in his
90s. Milliken is survived by his son, William? Jr. Milliken's wife,? Helen,
died of
ovarian cancer in 2012, at age 89. His daughter Elaine died of cancer in 1993.
More:
Grand Traverse GOP disowns ex-Gov. Milliken over his Clinton support More:
Milliken
throws support behind regional transit More: Former Michigan Republican Gov.
Milliken
endorses Clinton over Trump Milliken was? a third-generation politician,
serving as a
state senator like his father and grandfather. Romney was tapped by Richard
Nixon to
join his administration as Housing and Urban Development director, and Milliken
ascended to the governor's job. He was elected three times. Under the current
term-limit system, his record years in office won't be topped. Milliken became
governor in 1969, less than two years after the Detroit riot, believing the
success
of Michigan and Detroit? was intertwined. Milliken had a close working
relationship
with Young, the Democratic and bombastic former mayor of Detroit, as the
governor
championed statutory state revenue sharing, which aided Detroit and other
cities
during tough economic times in the 1970s. "I trusted him and I liked him,"
Milliken
said of Young. "I tried hard to do everything I could to be helpful to the city
of
Detroit and the mayor. We weren't entirely successful. He said in an interview
he
wished they could have done more on issues such as regional transportation and
investment for the riverfront. "When Gov. Milliken decided he wasn't to going
to run
again for governor, the first person he called was Mayor Young. And when Mayor
Young
decided he was not going to run again, the first person he called was Gov.
Milliken,"
the late? Bob Berg, press secretary to both men at different times, said in
2014.
"When they shook hands on a deal they knew they could trust each other to
follow
through," Berg said. "That's not always the case in politics these days.
Another
major issue for Milliken was protecting? the Great Lakes and Michigan's
environment.
He pushed through passage of the nation's most aggressive bottle recycling law
Milliken faced tough times in office with a major General Motors strike, and
economic
meltdowns in Michigan amid oil embargoes. After he left office, former Chrysler
CEO
Lee Iacocca named him to the automaker's board, citing his ability to work well
with
various constituencies. Milliken continued to endorse political candidates in
recent
years, regardless of their political stripe, as the Republican Party moved
further
away from him to the right. In 2016, the? Republican Party in Milliken's home
county
of Grand Traverse voted to no longer recognize him as a Republican, after
Milliken
endorsed Democrat Hillary Clinton in the presidential race against Republican
Donald
Trump. Some of Milliken's other Democratic endorsements over the years include
former
Gov. Jennifer Granholm and U.S. Sen. Gary Peters. He also? endorsed
Republicans,
including former Gov. Rick Snyder and the late Sen. John McCain when he ran for
president in 2008. Milliken's wife Helen, a leading advocate for the arts and
the
environment,? was a political force in her own right. In 1980, she skipped the
opening ceremonies of the Republican National Convention in Detroit - of which
Gov.
Milliken was a co-host - to attend a protest march outside the convention
decrying
the party's decision to remove pro-Equal Rights Amendment language from its
platform.
She also was an ardent supporter of abortion rights, in 1987 describing "all
other
rights" of a woman of "limited value" without the right to choose when to bear
children. With notes from? Free Press columnist? Carol Cain,? Free Press staff
writer
Kathleen Gray, and former Free Press staff writer Dawson Bell.
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