Alvin O'Konski
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Alvin Edward O'Konski (May 26, 1904 - July 8, 1987) was a United States Representative from Wisconsin. Born on a farm near Kewaunee, he attended the public schools and the University of Iowa at Iowa City. He was graduated from State Teachers College (now University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh) in Oshkosh, Wisconsin in 1927 and from the University of Wisconsin at Madison in 1932. He was an instructor in high schools at Omro and Oconto from 1926 to 1929 and was a member of the faculty of Oregon State College at Corvallis from 1929 to 1931, and at the University of Detroit from 1936 to 1938. He was superintendent of schools in Pulaski, Wisconsin from 1932 to 1935 and was an instructor at a junior college in Coleraine, Minnesota in 1936. He was an educator, journalist, and lecturer, and was an editor and publisher at Hurley, Wisconsin from 1940 to 1942.
O'Konski was elected as a Republican to the Seventy-eighth and to the fourteen succeeding Congresses, serving from January 3, 1943 to January 3, 1973; he was an unsuccessful candidate for nomination in 1957 to the United States Senate to fill a vacancy, and was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1972 to the Ninety-third Congress. He was a resident of Rhinelander, Wisconsin until his death in Kewaunee in 1987. Interment was in St. Hedwig's Cemetery.
[edit] Other Interests
- O'Konski was also the owner and founder of television station WAEO in Rhinelander, Wisconsin. The NBC affiliate signed on the air in 1966.
