Robert D. Ray

Ray (right) poses for a photograph in 2007 with fellow former Iowa governor Terry Branstad (left) and then-presidential candidate Fred Thompson (center)Robert Dolph Ray (September 26, 1928 – July 8, 2018) was an American lawyer and politician. A member of the Republican Party, he served as the 38th governor of Iowa from January 16, 1969 to January 14, 1983.

During his tenure as governor, Ray served as chair of the National Governors Association from 1975 to 1976; He graduated from Theodore Roosevelt High School in 1946. During Ray's time in office, the Iowa Constitution was modified, increasing the governor's term of office from two years to four years. 1972, 1974, 1978.

Executive Orders

As governor, Ray issued executive orders promoting civil rights, energy conservation, and paperwork reduction as well as establishing the Governor's Economy Committee, the Iowa Council for Children, the Task Force on Government Ethics, the Science Advisory Council, the Iowa Department of Transportation,

Taxes

Ray reduced property taxes and increased the income tax in order to fund the public schools of Iowa. The end result would be a pay out by the United States Air Force to the families ending a 4 year battle. thumb

Humanitarian Efforts

Ray served as a delegate to the United Nations Conference on Refugees in Geneva, Switzerland in 1979. Ray agreed to bring the group to the United States by creating his own refugee resettlement program.

“I didn’t think we could just sit here idly and say, “Let these people die. We wouldn’t want the rest of the world to say that about us if we were in the same situation. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”thumb

Native American Burials

Ray also enacted the first laws in the U.S. that protected American Indian graves. In the early 1970s, Maria Pearson was appalled that the skeletal remains of Native Americans were treated differently from those of caucasians.

Later life In Ray's later years, he suffered from Parkinson's disease.

On July 8, 2018, Ray died at a nursing home in Des Moines, at age 89.