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House Engrossed |
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State of Arizona Senate Forty-seventh Legislature Second Regular Session 2006
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HOUSE CONCURRENT RESOLUTION 2054 |
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A concurrent RESOLUTION
on the death of the honorable sam goddard.
(TEXT OF BILL BEGINS ON NEXT PAGE)
The Honorable Samuel P. Goddard, Jr., Arizona's twelfth governor, died on February 1, 2006 at the age of eighty-six.
Born on August 8, 1919, in Clayton, Missouri, Sam Goddard graduated from Harvard University where he majored in classical history and served as a member of the varsity crew team and the Harvard Glee Club. After his graduation in 1941, Sam Goddard enlisted as a private in the United States Army Air Corps, and during World War II he served as an operations and communications officer in all theatres of operation, serving the last months of the war in the South Pacific. Sam Goddard rose to the rank of Major and he remained active in the Air Force Reserve as a Colonel.
Sam Goddard married his wife, Judy Hatch, on a three-day pass from the military on July 1, 1944. Judy moved to Tucson, where Sam joined her after his discharge from the Air Force in 1945 and where their three sons were born. He then enrolled in the University of Arizona law school and, after graduating in 1949, he opened his first law practice in Tucson. He was active in the community, serving such worthwhile capacities as campaign chairman of the 1959 Tucson United Way and president of the Tucson Festival Society. He sang the lead in several Gilbert and Sullivan operettas. He also was instrumental in founding the Tucson Arts Festival in 1959. In the late 1950s, Sam Goddard formed a radio and television company and he became a pilot so that he could better access broadcasting facilities in remote parts of the state.
In 1960, Sam Goddard became chairman of the Arizona Democratic Committee, which he later served as chairman from 1979 to 1989. He served as a delegate to nearly every Democratic national convention from 1964 until 1992. In 1962, he ran for governor of Arizona and though he lost he ran again and was elected in 1964. Inaugurated on January 4, 1965, Governor Goddard was a strong advocate for the rights of minorities and women, and during his term in office he signed a civil rights bill that prohibited discrimination in voting, employment and access to public places. He also strongly supported the Central Arizona Project and worked to strengthen Arizona's trade relationships with Mexico. Governor Goddard also established the state's first budget office and established commissions on arts, aging and employment of the handicapped.
Despite the demands of his political career, Sam Goddard was active in numerous civic and community endeavors. He served on the national board of the United Funds and Councils of America, leading a tour of USO operations around the world in an effort to improve conditions for military dependents overseas. He also served as a director of the Harvard Alumni Association, as a board member of the Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco and as a member of the Central Arizona Water Conservation District Board.
Sam and Judy Goddard raised three sons, Terry, Tim and Bill, and they were married for fifty-five years until her death in 1999. Sam then married Myra Ann Pearson. He will be greatly missed by his family and many friends and the citizens of Arizona.
Therefore
Be it resolved by the House of Representatives of the State of Arizona, the Senate concurring:
That the Members of the Legislature express regret at the passing of Sam Goddard and extend their deepest sympathies to his surviving family members.