[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 68 (Friday, May 26, 2006)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E980]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[[Page E980]]
INTRODUCTION OF LEGISLATION DESIGNATING ``LARRY WINN, JR. POST OFFICE''

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. DENNIS MOORE

                               of kansas

                    in the house of representatives

                         Thursday, May 25, 2006

  Mr. MOORE of Kansas. Mr. Speaker, joined by my Kansas delegation 
colleagues--Representatives Tiahrt, Ryun and Moran--I am today 
introducing legislation to designate the United States Postal Service 
facility located at 6029 Broadmoor Street in Mission, Kansas, as the 
``Larry Winn, Jr. Post Office Building.''
  Edward Lawrence ``Larry'' Winn, Jr., represented Kansas'' Third 
Congressional District in the U.S. House from 1967 to 1985. Born in 
Kansas City, Missouri, in 1919, he was an Eagle Scout who attended 
public schools and received a B.A. from the University of Kansas in 
1941. Becoming an announcer for WHB radio, he later served as public 
relations director for the local branch of the American Red Cross. 
Returning to Kansas, he established and became vice president of Winn-
Rau Corporation, a private home builder. For 14 years, he served as 
National Director of the National Association of Home Builders, and 
also served as President of the Home Builders Association of Kansas 
City.
  In 1962, the incumbent U.S. Representative in the Third District, 
Robert Ellsworth, asked Winn, who had served as Republican Party 
chairman in that district, to be his campaign manager; he fulfilled 
that role in the 1962 and 1964 campaigns. In 1966, when Ellsworth 
unsuccessfully challenged incumbent U.S. Senator Jim Pearson in the 
Republican primary, Winn won election as his successor, defeating 
Overland Park Mayor Marvin Rainey. In later contests, among eight 
successful re-elections, Winn would defeat Lieutenant Governor James 
DeCoursey and Dan Watkins, the former chief of staff to Governor John 
Carlin.
  Initially appointed to the House Committees on Space and Aeronautics 
[later renamed Science and Technology] and the District of Columbia, 
Winn later was appointed to the Select Committee on Crime, the 
Veterans' Affairs Committee, and the International Relations Committee, 
which was later renamed the Foreign Affairs Committee. Described by 
Congressional Quarterly's Politics in America, 1982 as a ``quiet, 
unassuming man,'' Winn eventually rose to the ranking Republican seat 
on the Science and Technology Committee, where he was an active 
supporter of America's space exploration program. As Politics in 
America, 1982 noted, he also advocated research into alternative energy 
sources such as gasohol and solar and wind power, and tax credits for 
energy efficiency and conservation.

  Winn was appointed by President Carter and confirmed by the Senate to 
serve as a member of the U.S. delegation to the United Nations in 1979. 
He also was a member of the Canadian Interparliamentary Group and was 
ranking Republican member of the U.S.-European Interparliamentary 
Group. Domestically, Winn was a leading advocate of ``value 
engineering,'' a cost-saving government management system that was 
implemented in the early 1970s. He also was a leading advocate of a 
successful proposal maintaining ten regional federal office centers in 
the United States, which preserved Kansas City as a federal regional 
office center, rather than transferring those functions to Denver.
  Winn also is remembered for his advocacy of a proposed Tallgrass 
National Prairie Park in Kansas; as a result of his initial efforts, 
the Kansas Flint Hills are now home to the Tallgrass Prairie National 
Preserve, a unit of the National Park System managed in partnership 
with the private National Park Trust dedicated to the rich natural and 
cultural history of the tallgrass prairie ecosystem.
  In their 1972 analysis of Winn's career, the Ralph Nader Congress 
Project's Citizens Look at Congress review of Winn's activities 
concluded that: ``Legislatively, Winn shows a good feel  for  Third  
District  needs  and interests. . . . Although Winn has had 
considerable experience in public speaking and writing, his style is 
more folksy than polished.'' During his tenure, he taped a weekly radio 
program on current congressional issues that was distributed to local 
broadcasters, as well as drafting and circulating weekly newspaper 
columns and twice-yearly congressional questionnaires that were sent to 
all in-district postal patrons. He estimated that over 2,000 Third 
District residents visited his Washington, D.C., office during the 
first four years of his tenure, and bumper stickers proclaiming: ``I 
visited Congressman Larry Winn in Washington'' were seen frequently 
across the Kansas City area.
  Upon announcing his retirement from the U.S. House in 1984, 
Representative Winn published a column in the Christian Science Monitor 
decrying the increase in congressional partisan rancor. Twenty two 
years later, his words are even more relevant: ``It is important now 
for both Republicans and Democrats in the House of Representatives to 
recognize that a continuation of this rancor will undercut the 
legislative process. Most Americans are neither Republicans nor 
Democrats but are independents. This expresses a desire for pragmatism 
over ideology. Members of the House, without abandoning their 
individual philosophical approaches, should also approach problems 
pragmatically.''
  Mr. Speaker, Larry Winn, Jr., served the Third District of Kansas as 
it's Representative with diligence and decency for eighteen years. It 
is fitting that we now name a major postal facility in the Third 
District after him, and I hope the House will move swiftly to approve 
this measure.

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