George McGovren George Stanley McGovern, b. Avon, S.Dak., July 19, 1922, was the Democratic nominee for President Of The United States in 1972. He received (1953) his Ph.D. from Northwestern University, taught (1949-53) history at Dakota Wesleyan University, and served (1957-61) in the U.S. House of Representatives. Director of the Food for Peace program in 1961-62, he was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1962. McGovern won the 1972 Democratic presidential nomination with the support of younger delegates and opponents of the Vietnam War. His running mate was R. Sargent Shriver. McGovern lost the election to the incumbent, Richard M. Nixon, winning 38% of the popular vote but carried only Massachusetts and the District of Columbia. He was defeated in his bid for a fourth term in the Senate in 1980 and another bid for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984. War Experience...McGovern flew B-24's from N. Africa and later Cherignola, Italy, where he flew 35 missions as pilot of the Dakota Queen. These missions would carry him over Germany, Austria, Rumania and Yugoslavia. His fellow airmen rated him as top notch pilot. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for a mission to Vienna. Over the target, one engine was damaged and didn't feather properly. Losing altitude, they flew the return flight over Yugoslavia. They made it to a small British isle that had a small runway for Spitfire fighters. The chances of landing a lumbering B-24 on that island in one piece was small. After dumping all non-essential equipment overboard, McGovern put the aicraft down and both pilots stood on the brakes, stopping the bomber at the far end of the runway. Another B-24 following George was not as fortunate and crashed into the mountains just beyond the runnway. Ed. Note..Also serving in Italy at the same time were: Bob Dole, from Kansas , Audie L. Murphy , Daniel Inouye, from Hawaii; and Bill Mauldin, the cartoonist & Pulitzer Prize winner. Murphy & Inouye were both awarded the "Medal of Honor".	McGovern with his "Dakota Queen" crewmates McGovern with Humphrey at "68" Convention
Al Neuhardt was born on March 22, 1924, in Eureka, S.D. At age 11, he took his first job as a newspaper carrier and later as a youth worked in the composing room at the weekly Alpena (S.D.) Journal. After graduating from Alpena High School, he served as a combat infantryman in World War II and was awarded the Bronze Star. After the war, Neuharth attended the University of South Dakota, where he majored in journalism. When he graduated in 1950, he joined The Associated Press in Sioux Falls, S.D., as a reporter. After rising through the reporting, editing and management ranks of newspapers in South Dakota, Florida, Michigan and New York, Neuharth became Gannett president and chief operating officer in 1970; president and chief executive in 1973; and chairman, president and chief executive in 1979. Since his "retirement" from Gannett in 1989 at age 65, he has been an active author, speaker, columnist and world traveler. He "retired a second time" on June 1, 1997, as chairman of one of the nation's largest private charitable foundations, the Freedom Forum, which he founded in 1991 as the successor to the Gannett Foundation, established in 1935 by Frank E. Gannett. Neuharth has written eight books. His latest book, "Free Spirit: How You Can Get the Most Out of Life at Any Age," was published by Newseum Books in November 2000. Neuharth's autobiography, "Confessions of an S.O.B.," had a long run on The New York Times and other best-seller lists. Neuharth is married to Dr. Rachel Fornes, a Cocoa Beach, Fla., chiropractor. They have six children: Alexis Rae Fornes-Neuharth, Karina Rae Fornes-Neuharth, Ariana Fornes-Neuharth, Andre Fornes-Neuharth, Rafaelina Fornes-Neuharth and Aliandro Fornes-Neuharth. Neuharth also has two children by his first marriage. Dan, a former journalist and university teacher, & Jan, president and owner of Paper Chase Farms in Middleburg, Va.,	Neuhardt started USA Today
Lee Raymond born and attended local schools in Watertown, SD; where he graduated with the WHS Class of 1956. Lee is currently Chairman & CEO for Exxon-Mobil Corporation headquarted in Irving, Tex. Before holding these positions he held a variety of engineering & senior management positions in both foreign and domestic operations... A recent business journal article on Lee follows...Raymond did not set out to be an oilman, but he has built a financial and technological powerhouse, and will be a tough act to follow. He is a native of Watertown, S.D., a town of 20,000 about halfway between Fargo and Sioux Falls. In school, he quickly established himself as a vigorous debater with an interest in science. That led him to pursue a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering from the University of Wisconsin in 1960 and a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the University of Minnesota three years later. He planned a career in academia but he thought it would be good to get some real-world experience, so he joined the Tulsa office of "Standard Oil of New Jersey" (later renamed Exxon) as a production engineer in 1963. The ambitious young executive criss-crossed the corporate and global landscape, moving from Tulsa to the Caribbean to Latin America to New York. His financial skills first became apparent when in two years he took a refinery in Aruba that was losing $10 million a month and turned it into a moneymaker. He successfully ran the company's international supply and transportation of oil products. In 1979, Raymond was appointed president of Exxon Nuclear Co. In his methodical rise at Exxon, he never flinched from tough assignments, including overseeing the cleanup of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill and the legal settlements that followed. He gained a reputation for being reserved and analytical, and for investing Exxon's huge cash flow with great care. So it surprised no one when he was named chairman and CEO in 1993. Under the tight grip of Raymond and a small group of executives, Exxon tries to avoid the limelight even when the news is good. It excels at squeezing the most return from the resources it has, people close to the company say, but balks at taking political chances. While its exploration skills are considered first-rate and its refineries and network of service stations are run with efficiency, the company likes to limit its risk. For example, several years ago it let Royal Dutch/Shell show that oil and natural gas could be profitably recovered from fields thousands of feet below the ocean surface before taking the big plunge itself. "Our returns have to be sufficient to justify [these unprecedented investments] because you can't drill a well in Kazakhstan on a MasterCard," Raymond said in an interview for this article.	WHS-Class of 1956 Chairman & CEO 1996