39 Facts About Edgar Whitcomb

1.

Edgar Doud Whitcomb was an American attorney, writer and politician, who served as the 43rd governor of Indiana.

2.

Edgar Whitcomb returned to the practice of law and moved to Seymour, Indiana.

3.

Edgar Whitcomb sailed around the Mediterranean Sea, across the Atlantic Ocean in 1990 and geographically sailed around the world in 1995, although he was not able to return to his exact starting point, because his ship ran aground on a reef in the Gulf of Suez.

4.

Edgar Whitcomb married for a second time in 2013 and died in 2016, aged 98.

5.

Edgar Whitcomb entered Indiana University in 1939 to study law, but quit school to join the military at the outbreak of World War II.

6.

Edgar Whitcomb enlisted in the United States Army Air Corps in 1940 and was deployed to the Pacific Theater.

7.

Edgar Whitcomb was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in 1941 and made an aerial navigator.

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8.

Edgar Whitcomb served two tours of duty in the Philippines and was promoted to First Lieutenant.

9.

Edgar Whitcomb escaped by swimming all night through shark-infested waters to an island unoccupied by the Japanese army.

10.

Edgar Whitcomb was eventually able to secure passage to China under an assumed name where he made contact with the United States Army and was repatriated in December 1943.

11.

Edgar Whitcomb wrote a book about his experience entitled Escape from Corregidor, published in 1958.

12.

Edgar Whitcomb was discharged from active duty in 1946, but he remained in the reserve military forces until 1977 holding the rank of colonel.

13.

Edgar Whitcomb met and married Patricia Dolfuss on May 10,1953, and the couple had five children.

14.

Edgar Whitcomb was first elected to public office in 1950, serving for three years in the Indiana State Senate before resigning to begin his law practice.

15.

Edgar Whitcomb passed the bar exam in 1954 and began a law practice.

16.

Edgar Whitcomb set up a successful law firm in North Vernon, but in later years he moved his practice, having offices in both Seymour and Indianapolis.

17.

In 1966, Edgar Whitcomb was elected to serve as Indiana Secretary of State, a position he used to springboard for his political career.

18.

Edgar Whitcomb was appointed by the Governor of Indiana to serve on the Great Lakes Compact Commission, a commission with representatives from the Great Lake states who oversaw joint projects for preserving and developing the Great Lakes.

19.

Edgar Whitcomb held both offices concurrently until his resignation in December 1968.

20.

At the 1968 Republican state convention, Whitcomb competed to win the nomination for governor against Indiana House of Representatives minority leader Otis R Bowen and future Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz.

21.

Edgar Whitcomb was among the beneficiaries of the cycle and took office on January 13,1969.

22.

Edgar Whitcomb found himself in party with the rural Republicans, while Bowen, who had become speaker of the house, grew to become a leader among the urban members.

23.

Edgar Whitcomb vetoed a number of spending bills passed by the assembly and began a fight for control of the party leadership.

24.

Snyder subsequently resigned from his leadership position and Edgar Whitcomb installed a new chairman, Jim Neal, a newspaper editor from Noblesville, who remained friendly to his positions, but neutral at the 1972 convention.

25.

Contemporaneously, Edgar Whitcomb resumed collection of the fund to state party coffers.

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26.

Edgar Whitcomb requested that General Assembly pass an act repealing all laws that were enacted because of the Supreme Court decision, some of which were nearly a century old.

27.

Edgar Whitcomb had committed to not increasing the tax burden on the state in his campaign, but the state was not permitted to take on debt and was in need to growing its reserve funds.

28.

Edgar Whitcomb created by executive order a commission of sixty business leaders to examine the entire operation of the state government and recommend changes to improve its operational efficiency.

29.

Edgar Whitcomb used their findings to alter work flows that resulted in an annual savings of $12 million.

30.

Edgar Whitcomb saved money by withholding non-mandatory pay raises for most state employees.

31.

In 1976, Edgar Whitcomb sought the Republican nomination to the United States Senate, but was defeated in the primary by Indianapolis Mayor Richard Lugar.

32.

Edgar Whitcomb then returned to his private law practice which in turn he soon moved to Seymour, Indiana.

33.

Edgar Whitcomb served several years as the director of the Mid American World Trade Association and took a job for a media company based in Indianapolis and spent time traveling the United States setting up a network of FM radio stations.

34.

Edgar Whitcomb retired from his law practice in 1985, at age 68.

35.

Edgar Whitcomb took up sailing as a hobby and purchased a 30-foot boat.

36.

Edgar Whitcomb sailed solo around the Mediterranean, across the Atlantic and with Jeff La Dage in the Pacific Ocean.

37.

Edgar Whitcomb was rescued and returned to the United States.

38.

Edgar Whitcomb died in his sleep on February 4,2016, at his home in Rome, Indiana, at the age of 98.

39.

Edgar Whitcomb is buried at Hayden Cemetery, in his hometown of Hayden, Indiana.