Terry Everett

Robert Terry Everett (February 15, 1937 – March 12, 2024) was an American politician and a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives from Alabama's 2nd congressional district.

Everett was born on February 15, 1937, in Dothan, Alabama, the son of Bob and Thelma Everett.

He lived and attended school in Midland City, Alabama.

Upon graduation from high school in 1955, Everett joined the U.S. Air Force and was assigned to the U.S. Air Force Security Service's 6901st Special Communication Group as an intelligence analyst from 1955 to 1959.

He served as analyst for reconnaissance aircraft flights including the Lockheed U-2 which, as a congressman, he protected from defunding.

Everett began a career in journalism after leaving the air force.

He began as a reporter for the Dothan Eagle then became publisher and editor of the Graceville News and the Hartford News Herald.

He was succeeded by Bobby Bright, the first Democrat to represent the district since William Louis Dickinson won it during the Barry Goldwater landslide in Alabama in 1964.

In 1966, Everett started weekly newspapers Down Home Today in Dothan and Daleville Today in Daleville.

Everett expanded his weeklies to include The Enterpriser and The Army Flier at Fort Rucker (now Fort Novosel).

He later expanded into publishing dailies with The Daily Ledger in Enterprise and The Aurora Advertiser in Aurora, Missouri.

By the late 1980s, Everett had become a prominent businessman and community leader in the Wiregrass.

He established Everett Land Development and served as president and chairman of the board of the Alabama Press Association, chairman of the board for Dothan Federal Savings Bank, president of the Daleville Chamber of Commerce, and member of the Environment Protection Commission for the Southeastern Region of the United States.

In 1983, his business reached its peak when he founded Gulf Coast Media, and he became owner-publisher of the Baldwin Times, Robertsdale Independent, Fairhope Courier, Foley Onlooker, Gulf Shores Islander, Spanish Fort Bulletin, and the Union Springs Herald.

Everett sold all of his newspaper holdings except the Union Springs Herald in 1988.

Later, he owned and operated Premium Homebuilders, a residential construction company in Enterprise.

Previously, Dickinson had only won a 14th term in 1990 by only two points.

In 1992, Bill Dickinson announced his retirement from Congress, having served the 2nd District since 1964.

It was widely expected that the race to succeed him would be between Democratic State Treasurer George Wallace, Jr., the son of the former governor, and Republican State Senator Larry Dixon from Montgomery.

However, Everett upset Dixon in the Republican primary, winning by 15 points largely by dominating the area of the district outside Montgomery.

In November, Everett defeated Wallace by just under two points (3,500 votes).

Everett was likely helped by redistricting changes that moved many of the district's African American residents, particularly in Montgomery and Selma, to the 7th District to create a minority-majority district.

He served from 1993 to his retirement in 2009.

The district reverted to form in the 1994 Republican wave, and Everett was reelected with 73 percent of the vote.

He was reelected six more times after that with no substantive opposition.

Like his predecessor Dickinson, Everett was one of the most conservative members of the House.

He had the highest lifetime rating from the American Conservative Union of any member of the Alabama delegation.

He showed a concern about local issues and demonstrated a real impact on some issues that are vital to his constituency.

In 1995, he formed a Peanut Caucus and on the Agriculture Committee pushed for reform of the peanut program as part of the Freedom to Farm Act (which included a 10 percent cut in the support price).

As chair of the Veterans' Affairs subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, Everett garnered national attention in the fall of 1997 for revealing that former Ambassador M. Larry Lawrence had improperly secured a burial waiver at Arlington National Cemetery.

After checking a list of political donors who had received Arlington burial waivers from the Bill Clinton White House, Everett's investigation found that Lawrence had lied about his military record to qualify for the waiver.

The New York Times reported on December 17, 1997: "On that note, it looked as though the mini-scandal would end as an oratorical draw, or even a Republican setback. But the Republicans reacted to White House anger by digging into Mr. Lawrence's background. In early December, a House panel headed by Everett discovered that there was no record that Mr. Lawrence was aboard the ship Horace Bushnell, as he and the White House had claimed. That discovery revived Republican accusations that perhaps the Administration had granted a favor to a wealthy donor after all. But for once a politician warned against instant judgment. I urge everyone to avoid hasty conclusions, Mr. Everett said."

The New York Times reported on December 12, 1997: "Mr. Lawrence probably would have stayed at Arlington forever if it were not for a group of Congressional Republicans led by Representative Terry Everett of Alabama, who last summer began investigating whether the Clinton White House had sold burial plots to generous campaign contributors."

In 1998, Congressman Everett received the "Excellence in Programmatic Oversight Award" from the House Republican Leadership for his Veterans' Affairs Subcommittee probe into improper burial waivers at Arlington National Cemetery.

As a Veterans' Affairs subcommittee chairman in 1999, he helped secure a $1.7 billion increase for veterans' health care spending and the opening of four new national cemeteries.

During the 2002 Farm bill, Everett chaired the Specialty Crops and Foreign Agriculture Programs Subcommittee, which placed him in a strong position to advocate the interests of peanut farmers.

When the 30 percent peanut subsidy finally lost congressional support, he managed to secure passage of a $3.5 billion program to buy back quota owned by peanut farmers, similar to reforms to the dairy program.

Everett also worked on military and veterans' issues (the 2nd District includes Fort Novosel and Maxwell-Gunter Air Force Base).

He sold the Union Springs Herald in 2003.

On September 26, 2007, Everett announced his intention to retire at the end of the 110th Congress after the 2008 elections.