A pioneer of politics

For George Parker, education and duty are serious business.

Sitting at a small table in a nook at The Terrace retirement community, near windows peering over a leaf-covered parking lot ringed with trees, Parker recounts his life’s journey with more energy than most men nearing their 84th birthday display. His journey took him around the globe with the Air Force during World War II and led him back to Boone County in the 1960s to lead a drive to end 100 years of one-party rule.

“He stood out because he was taking a different course of political philosophy than was present in Boone County, and he was able to get qualified people to run for office on the Republican ticket, where before there was never any opposition to the Democrats,” said George Ross, 90, Parker’s political ally.

Parker grew up in Oklahoma when it was still a territory. His father, who had only completed the eighth grade, was a teacher. The family eventually moved to Joplin, where his father worked in the lead mines and joined the police force. The family later moved to Nevada, Mo., where the younger Parker completed high school.

“I thought I’d be a politician, teacher or preacher,” Parker says.

But fate had different plans for Parker. In 1939, Hitler had conquered Poland, and World War II was right around the corner. Duty called when Parker was barely 17, and he enlisted in the Army Air Corps on July 9, 1940.

He flew B-26 Marauder bombers during the war.

Parker now sits surrounded by books and boxes of papers, recalling the war while his wife, Lois, serves lemonade and cocktail nuts. They married while Parker was still in the military. Their poodle, Bartholomew, skitters about the apartment before settling next to Lois on a recliner. Lois and Bart like to play hide and seek amongst the books and military memorabilia.

Parker looks over at his military medals and ribbons on the wall. There’s a lot to admire, including a Distinguished Flying Cross, an Air Medal and two Purple Hearts he received after suffering injuries in a couple of plane crashes.

Parker pulls up his shirt sleeve, points out dime-size scars on his inner forearm and explains how Axis forces shot out his plane’s engine while he was on a bombing run over Caen, France, about a month after D-Day. He crash-landed in Normandy after smoldering shrapnel burst through the fuselage and tore through his leather flight jacket and right forearm.

The Air Force patched him up and put him back in service. He volunteered for a mission to coordinate bombings near the Rhine River. Allied forces, meanwhile, were marching through Germany at a whopping 35 miles a day, and it was his job to make sure the U.S. bombers didn’t blast their own troops. He recalls sitting in the back seat, looking down and scanning the ground near Braunschweig, Germany. He woke up four hours later in an ambulance.

A shell had exploded in the vicinity of Parker’s plane and knocked him and the pilot unconscious. The plane fell to the Earth. It’s unclear how long the plane flew on its own, but the aircraft wound up in two pieces on the ground.

“Neither one of us knew what happened,” Parker says, pointing to his hands, back and chest — parts of his body that were injured. The .45-caliber pistol strapped to his chest left a deep purple bruise, but doctors found no broken bones.

After the war, the Air Force figured Parker wasn’t busted up enough to keep him from continuing to serve his country. “I ended up staying 21 years after the war,” Parker says.

Path to public service

It was a dinner conversation with his father back in high school that guaranteed Parker’s military service wouldn’t be his only legacy.

“He said the kings don’t control the government anymore, the people do,” Parker recalls. “We get the government we deserve, not the one you wish for.”

The talk sparked a fire in Parker. “I thought, for some reason or another, somebody’s got to be in politics. I got it in my head somebody’s got to be a leader, somebody’s got to do something.”

Why shouldn’t it be a war hero? He had served his country as a pilot, he could serve it as a politician, too.

But he would need training. He had not attended college and knew nothing about politics except that the country works a lot better when two strong political parties share power.

So Parker stayed in the Air Force and trained pilots in China for 2 1/2 years. He later worked in intelligence at the Pentagon, briefing and debriefing attache officers — “overt spies,” he calls them — and trying to get Austrian and German scientists to immigrate to the United States. All the while, he knew he’d be a Republican politician once he retired from military service.

“I looked at the (next) 20 years,” Parker says. “Prepare for politics, get a college degree, get all the experience I could.” He eventually earned a bachelor’s degree and a master’s in public administration.

When Parker retired from the Air Force in 1961, he decided not to return to Joplin. It already had a strong Republican base. Not too far away, though, was Columbia, the seat of a county that had not elected a Republican since the Civil War.

“He was a hero down there (in southwest Missouri),” says Parker’s son, G.W. Parker Jr. “That would have been easy to get elected as a Republican down there.” In Columbia, however, “no one had ever seen a Republican.”

One-party rule leads to corruption and dirty politics, Parker says, so he stationed himself in Columbia.

“I decided you need two parties everywhere,” he says. “I decided to be a representative here.”

He ran for the state House of Representatives on that platform in 1962 but lost the race.

“I didn’t know what to talk about,” he says. “You’ve got to fight your way into politics.”

So Parker read the playbook of Democrats from other regions in the 1950s and began recruiting groups of like-minded people into neighborhood associations. Republicans were afraid to speak out then, Parker says, lending the associations an air of secrecy not unlike that of a communist or terror cell.

Republicans in Columbia

In 1964, change happened. Parker was elected by a slim margin to what was then the state’s 120th District House seat. He was re-elected in 1966. By that time, Republicans were gaining a foothold in Boone County politics; other Republicans began appearing on the ballot.

“I think he’s had a pretty positive impact on politics in general,” G.W. Parker Jr. says. “I know there’s been quite a few folks inspired by him to go on and run for office.”

A mutual friend introduced Parker to George Ross in 1965, when Ross was transportation manager for the Missouri Farmers Association. Ross said Parker had a huge impact on politics in Boone County.

Part of his success could be attributed to good timing. As Parker was gaining popularity as a politician, State Farm Insurance brought a regional office to Columbia. Many of its employees moved from Bloomington, Ill., a Republican stronghold, to Columbia.

“He had a nucleus to work with when he was furthering the cause of Republicans in Missouri,” Ross says.

Eventually, Ross began delivering absentee ballots to people in nursing homes and other home-bound people. A Democrat and Republican were teamed up to deliver the ballots, “so nobody tried to convince anybody else to their way of thinking,” Ross says.

“The county clerk ... was looking for balance in the way we were doing things,” Ross says. “There weren’t too many Republicans around.”

Parker spent a lot of time trying to change that. He founded the Pachyderm Clubs — Republican groups that are based on the model of civic groups such as the Kiwanis Club or Rotary. Pachyderms don’t endorse candidates, and they try to avoid being too political. Since they were founded by Parker, there now 60 such Pachyderm Clubs in 25 states.

It took the Republican National Committee 18 years to recognize the Pachyderms as an auxiliary to the national party. The Pachyderms sometimes do special programs in schools, not to preach the party’s ideology, Parker says, but to teach children about politics and leadership. Parker is now chairman emeritus of the Columbia chapter, though he attends meetings only occasionally. That’s because the Columbia club convenes every Friday at noon, the same time the Senior Center serves lunch.

A Lasting Influence

Forest Brown sits in a rocker at the Senior Center on a recent Friday afternoon, waiting for Parker to join him for a meal. Brown, former Republican Party chairman in Randolph County, lauds Parker’s influence on politics in the region.

“I view him as a man who has helped the Republican Party in Missouri grow more than any other Republican that I know of, which in turn has helped produce good, clean politics,” Brown says.

Things have changed a bit since the ‘60s, however. Harold Reisch, a state representative from Boone County from 1968 to 1982, says the Republicans moved away from their moderate base and began having trouble electing candidates.

“We put up some candidates that were really out of step with what the average voter in Boone County desired or felt would represent them well,” Reisch says. “This county — either party can win if they put up the right candidates ... it’s a pretty intelligent electorate we have.”

Parker certainly had a hand in that phenomenon.

“George had so many volunteers that when I announced I would run ... they moved over to help me because George really had more volunteers than they could effectively use,” says Reisch, a self-described moderate Republican. “George helped me a lot. George Parker eats, sleeps and lives politics.”

In spite of Parker’s influence, Democrats, in many ways, continue to have the upper hand in Boone County, particularly in local politics. In November, for example, many county offices were won by uncontested Democrats, some of whom have held their offices for more than 20 years. Parker, however, doesn’t see that as an indication of a weak two-party system.

“I think most voters are satisfied with the caliber of local officeholders, and it is not worth (Republicans’) effort to locate able candidates,” Parker says. “It also means that there is no spirited individual looking to run for a county office. Thus, there is no pressure on the Republican Party from their members to run candidates.”

Encouraging Others

These days, Parker pilots a white Chrysler Town and Country minivan instead of a plane. It carries bumper stickers instead of bombs. “Talent for Senate” is one; “B-26 Marauder Historical Society” is another. Parker founded the society, which now has archives in Akron, Ohio, and Tucson, Ariz.

Another sticker speaks of Parker’s character and commitment.

“Free Government Requires Active Citizens,” it proclaims.

Parker doesn’t perceive what he did as particularly special. If he’s remembered at all a generation from now, he hopes it will be for making people realize that anyone can do what he did. One person can make a difference — it just takes commitment — and he hopes people take that lesson to heart.

“No one appoints a spark plug,” Parker says. “If you want something accomplished, you gotta go out and do it yourself.

“We act like we’re powerless to do anything. ... Who’s holding you back? The only thing holding you back is your own ability.”