Dale Alford

Thomas Dale Alford (born January 28, 1916 in Newhope , Pike County , Arkansas , † January 25, 2000 in Little Rock , Arkansas) was an American politician . Between 1959 and 1963 he represented the fifth constituency of the state of Arkansas in the US House of Representatives .

Career

Dale Alford attended the Rector public schools and Arkansas State College in Jonesboro . He then studied until 1939 at the University of Arkansas in Little Rock medicine. Eventually he finished his studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago . Between 1940 and 1946 he was a member of the US Army Medical Service . After the end of the Second World War , Alford worked as a university lecturer and assistant professor of ophthalmology at various universities. He also ran a private practice in this area. Between 1955 and 1958 he was also a member of the Little Rock Education Committee.

In 1958, Alford was elected to the US House of Representatives as an independent Democrat with 51 percent of the vote against incumbent Brooks Hays . He was not an official candidate, but was added to the ballot paper through the write-in candidate . After the Republican Charles F. Curry in 1930, Alford was only the second politician to enter Congress in this way ; later, Republican Joe Skeen from New Mexico succeeded in doing this . Two years later, Alford was nominated by the Democrats and confirmed with 82.7 percent of the vote. This enabled him to complete two legislative terms in Congress between January 3, 1959 and January 3, 1963. In 1960 he was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles , where John F. Kennedy was nominated as the party's presidential candidate.

In 1962, Alford renounced another candidacy for Congress. He would have had to run in another district anyway, since the previous fifth district was dissolved. Instead, he ran unsuccessfully within his party against Governor Orval Faubus for the nomination for the gubernatorial elections. In 1966 he failed again in the gubernatorial elections. Then he withdrew from politics.

In the following years he was an active member of the Trinity Episcopal Church and numerous other associations. Dale Alford died of heart failure on January 25, 2000. He was buried in Little Rock. Since 1940 he was married to L'Moore Smith; the couple had three children.

Web links

• Dale Alford in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)

• Dale Alford in the database of Find a Grave (English)