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In 1978, when a little-known university chancellor challenged the Republican Party-endorsed candidate for governor, many observers gave him little chance to win. But at an event in downtown La Crosse, Dyer introduced Zielke to Lee Sherman Dreyfus, who was elected to the state’s highest office in 1978.
“He said this guy is going to be important,” Zielke said. “He seemed to be able to judge these people.”
Dyer, who died Saturday at 97, was a longtime Republican activist and known to readers of the
La Crosse Tribune by his pen name “Uncle Charlie.” He also was a close associate of former Mayor Milo Knutson, a radio and television commentator whose public speaking style was compared to that of national radio personality Paul Harvey.
Knutson dominated La Crosse politics as mayor from 1955 to 1965, and then got elected to the state Senate. Dyer was there every step of the way.
Walter Baltz Jr., a West Salem, Wis., Republican, said, “Dyer was always hovering about Milo. He was a staunch Milo guy.”
While Dyer ran unsuccessfully for La Crosse mayor in 1973, he was mainly a behind-the-scenes activist.
“He seldom put himself out front,” Baltz said.
Zielke and his wife, Bea, were friends with Dyer and his wife, Mary Jane. When she died in 1980, Zielke made it a point to have lunch with Dyer once a week.
“I made sure we had lunch,” Zielke said. “Pretty soon it was helping me more than him. He was a friend and a mentor.”
During his first campaign for mayor in 1975, Dyer suggested that Zielke hold a breakfast fundraiser at the Stoddard Hotel, which was located on the site of the State Bank parking lot at Fourth and State streets.
“I said, who’s going to come?” Zielke said. “Phil started selling tickets, and it floored me because the place filled up. He just seemed to know what was good politics.”
Former state Sen. Brian Rude, a Coon Valley, Wis., Republican, said what amazed him about Dyer was how he was able to stay plugged in to the local political scene into his 90s.
Dyer was very active in Rude’s campaigns for Assembly and Senate. Even when Rude hired an agency to do his state Senate advertising, Dyer would come along to the meetings and approve the buys.
Democrat John Medinger, a former mayor and state legislator, has fond memories of Dyer.
“I’ve known Phil Dyer forever,” Medinger said. “He worked against me on a few campaigns. He was one of those guys who got into the ring and really cared about what kind of city he lived in, what kind of state and what kind of country. I had the privilege of listening to the wisdom of Phil Dyer. I enjoyed Phil.”
Medinger said the Hotel Stoddard was the center of La Crosse’s conservative political scene, and WKTY-AM, where Dyer worked as sales manager and vice president (and where Milo Knutson worked as a commentator) was in the basement of the hotel.
“If you were a politician, you made your pilgrimage to Mecca — the coffee shop at the Hotel Stoddard,” Medinger said. “Phil was at the center of the political universe.”
Opinion page editor Richard Mial can be reached at (608) 791-8232 or rmial@lacrossetribune.com.
