[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 119 (Thursday, September 19, 2002)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1617-E1618]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  TRIBUTE TO THE HONORABLE DAVE HAMIL

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. BOB SCHAFFER

                              of colorado

                    in the house of representatives

                      Thursday, September 19, 2002

  Mr. SCHAFFER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to memorialize the Honorable 
Dave Hamil of Sterling, Colorado, who passed away on July 27, 2002. 
Dave Hamil was an exceptional man who spent his life serving his 
community and his nation.
  Dave Hamil's story is a great American story. As a child, Dave 
attended a one-room school on Colorado's Eastern Plains. In 1925, he 
graduated from Logan County Industrial Arts High School as the Student 
Body President.
  After graduating with honors from Hastings College in 1930, Dave 
returned to Logan County, where he started a farming and ranching 
business. In 1933, he married Genevieve Robinson. Dave and Genevieve 
were married 64 years. The couple had three children, Jo Ann, Don and 
Jack.
  In 1938, the same year he was first elected to the Colorado House of 
Representatives, Mr. Hamil helped organize the Sterling section of the 
Highline Electric Cooperative. This brought electricity to the farms 
and ranches of Logan County for the very first time.
  During his tenure in the legislature, Mr. Hamil served as Speaker of 
the Colorado House for five years, from 1951 to 1956. Among his 
accomplishments were locating the Air Force Academy near Colorado 
Springs and extending Interstate 70 west through the Eisenhower Tunnel 
and into Utah.
  In 1956, President Dwight Eisenhower appointed Hamil as administrator 
of the Rural Electrification Administration (REA). He was so talented 
in that capacity, when Richard Nixon was elected president, he asked 
Dave to return to the post. Mr. Hamil continued to serve as the REA 
administrator during the Ford and Carter administrations.
  Between the Eisenhower and Nixon administrations, Dave was appointed 
by Colorado Governor John Love to serve as Director of Institutions for 
the state. There he used his exceptional management skills to create 
one of the best mental health systems in the nation.

[[Page E1618]]

  Although his successful career often took him away from his Colorado 
home, when he retired in 1979, Dave Hamil returned to Sterling. Over 
the years, he has served on the boards of a host of community 
organizations, including the Atwood School District Board, the Elks 
Lodge, the Masonic Lodge, the Sterling United Way, and the Logan County 
Chamber of Commerce. Dave also served as president of the Logan County 
Historical Society, where he helped with the Johnson addition to the 
Overland Trail Museum. That same museum now includes a building named 
in Dave Hamil's honor.
  A citizen of Colorado's Fourth Congressional District, Dave Hamil was 
truly a great American. It is with sadness that I inform the House of 
the loss of such an exceptional American. I ask the House to join me in 
extending our sincere sympathy to the family and friends of Mr. Dave 
Hamil.

                          ____________________