Cecil Andrus

Cecil Dale Andrus (August 25, 1931 – August 24, 2017) was an American politician who served as 26th and 28th governor of Idaho, for a total of fourteen years.

Born in Hood River, Oregon on August 25, 1931, Andrus was the middle of three children of Hal Stephen and Dorothy May (Johnson) Andrus, with older brother Steve and younger sister Margaret.

They later lived near Junction City, on a farm without electricity.

At age 17, he got a good summer job with the local utility in 1949, and late in August, he eloped to Reno with Carol Mae May (born December 26, 1932), his high school sweetheart.

Andrus had just turned 18, and she was 16 months younger.

The Andruses enjoyed a happy, affectionate marriage, and he always referred to her as "his first wife" or "his bride".

He decided to keep working and not return to college.

During World War II, the family moved to Eugene in early 1942, when "Cece" was 11, where Hal (1906–2004) and his brother Bud opened a machine shop to refurbish sawmill equipment.

Andrus graduated from Eugene High School in 1948 at age 16 and attended Oregon State College in Corvallis, where he majored in engineering in his freshman year.

Following the outbreak of the Korean War, he enlisted in the U.S. Naval Reserves in February 1951, and served as an electronics technician aboard patrol aircraft until 1955.

After his discharge from the Navy, Andrus moved to Orofino in northern Idaho, where he worked in the timber industry in a variety of jobs at a sawmill his father co-owned.

In 1960, at age 28, and concerned over the local Republican state senator's stance against needed education improvements in Idaho schools, particularly in rural areas of the state, Andrus filed as a Democrat to run against him and won, and was re-elected in 1962 and 1964 from Orofino (and Clearwater County).

After the sawmill closed, Andrus switched to the insurance industry in 1963, and moved his family down the Clearwater River to Lewiston in 1966.

Andrus lost his first gubernatorial election in 1966 but won four (in 1970, 1974, 1986, and 1990) and his fourteen years as governor is the most in state history.

He is the most recent Democrat to have held the office.

Andrus first ran for governor in 1966 but was narrowly defeated in the Democratic primary by Charles Herndon, an attorney from Salmon.

Seven weeks before the November election, Herndon and two others died in a twin-engine private plane crash in the mountains 6 mi northwest of Stanley, while en route from Twin Falls to Coeur d'Alene in mid-September.

Andrus was appointed the nominee to take Herndon's place on the ballot.

He lost the general election to Republican Don Samuelson of Sandpoint by more than 11,000 votes, earning Andrus the unlikely distinction of losing both the primary and general election races for the same office in the same year.

He returned to the state senate two years later, easily unseating the Republican incumbent in the 1968 election, and represented Lewiston.

Herndon's widow, Lucille, was elected to several local political offices after his death.

Undaunted by his earlier setback, Andrus defeated Samuelson by over 10,000 votes in a gubernatorial election rematch in 1970.

This was attributed in large part to Andrus's public opposition to proposals for development of molybdenum mining in central Idaho's White Cloud Mountains, which Samuelson supported.

During his first term as governor, Andrus played a key role in winning support by the U.S. Congress for federal designation of the Sawtooth Wilderness Area in the State of Idaho.

Andrus was easily re-elected in 1974 with over 70% of the vote, defeating Republican Lieutenant Governor Jack M. Murphy of Shoshone by a record margin.

In 1974, Time magazine named Governor Andrus one of the "200 Faces for the Future".

A Democrat, he also served as U.S. Secretary of the Interior from 1977 to 1981 during the Carter Administration.

In January 1977, Andrus left his post as governor to serve as Secretary of the Interior for newly inaugurated President Jimmy Carter, whom he had known since both were freshman governors in 1971.

Andrus became the first Idahoan to serve in a presidential cabinet.

He was succeeded in Idaho by Lieutenant Governor John V. Evans, a Democrat who served nearly a decade, winning elections in 1978 and 1982.

Andrus also took a leadership role in securing Congressional passage of the Redwood National Park Expansion Act in 1978.

which added 48000 acre to Redwood National Park in California, in a major expansion to preserve remnants of the giant redwood forests there.

In 1979, when President Carter asked for the resignations of his entire Cabinet during an administration retreat at Camp David, the resignation of Andrus was not accepted.

Andrus wrote in his memoir about such a need for compromise relative to his successful, last-ditch efforts in securing passage of the Alaska Lands Act during the last month of the Carter Administration in December 1980, following Ronald Reagan's election in November: "The environmental groups were initially hostile. I actually had to listen to the idiotic argument (from the Wilderness Society and Sierra Club's paid Washington lobbyists) that they could get a better Alaska package out of Reagan and Watt."

"Cooler heads quickly prevailed", Andrus continues, "It proved the old adage that there's nothing like a hanging in the morning to focus the mind. Even though we were creating tomorrow's controversies, a 103-million acre [preservation] plan ... was a lot better than nothing."

Andrus stayed on as Secretary of the Interior for the remainder of Carter's presidency and returned to Idaho after Carter's term ended in January 1981.

In public life, Andrus was noted for his strong conservationist and environmental views and accomplishments, and an Idaho wildlife preserve established in 1993 in Washington County is named the Cecil D. Andrus Wildlife Management Area in his honor.

In 2018, the Cecil D. Andrus–White Clouds Wilderness was renamed after him.

A political liberal, he protected the environment by minimizing the control of business interests held over the public domain and by concentrating decision-making in the hands of experts in the Interior Department.

He argued that environmentalism can and must coexist with positive economic development.