John Howard Pyle

John Howard Pyle (March 25, 1906 – November 29, 1987) was an American broadcaster and politician who served as the ninth governor of the U.S. state of Arizona from 1951 to 1955. An opponent of polygamy, he authorized a raid on a Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints compound. As a member of the Republican Party, Pyle also served as an official in the administration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Pyle graduated from Arizona State University in 1930 and was a member of Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity. He was a program director for a radio station and served as a war correspondent during World War II. He was the first Governor of Arizona who was born in the 20th century.

Biography Born in 1906 in Sheridan, Wyoming, Pyle was the first governor of Arizona to be born in the 20th century and was the Program Director of KFAD (now KTAR) Radio in Phoenix from 1930 to 1951. He also served as a war correspondent during World War II and covered the surrender ceremony of the Japanese. Pyle defeated pioneering female politician Ana Frohmiller in his 1950 campaign for governor. He served as Governor of Arizona from 1951 to 1955.

In 1953, he attempted to break up a polygamous fundamentalist Mormon compound in Colorado City, Arizona, in what became known as the Short Creek Raid, which resulted in two dozen men arrested and 236 children placed in foster homes. This move alienated many voters in the state after photographs of tearful children being forcibly removed from their distraught mothers appeared in the newspapers. Later citing the negative reaction by the voters to the Short Creek raid as the cause, Pyle subsequently lost his 1954 re-election bid for a third term to his Democratic opponent, former Senate Majority Leader Ernest McFarland, and left office in January 1955.

After his governorship ended, Pyle joined the presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower, appointed as director of the newly created Office of the Deputy Assistant to the President for Intergovernmental Relations on February 1, 1955. When president Dwight D. Eisenhower created a Joint Federal–State Action Committee on July 20, 1957, to address traffic safety, he appointed Pyle as one of the seven committee members, and Pyle spoke as a representative of the president at regional conferences on highway safety held in 1958. In 1959, he became president of the National Safety Council (NSC).

Later life

The NSC elected Vincent L. Tofany as its new president on October 29, 1973, ending Pyle's tenure. Pyle retired and moved to Tempe, where he wrote columns for the Tempe Daily News-Tribune. After having a stroke, he was hospitalized on October 23, 1987. Pyle died on November 29, 1987, in Tempe, Arizona, survived by his wife, Lucile Hanna Pyle, and two daughters. Pyle's home, abandoned after his death, was later refurbished and preserved as a historic property called the Pyle House.