Alumnus profile: Former Pa. Governor Dick Thornburgh

In the Dick Thornburgh Archive Collection room located in Hillman library, students can… In the Dick Thornburgh Archive Collection room located in Hillman library, students can study the artifacts that chronicle the former Pennsylvania governor’s life or they can watch a slide slow of pictures from his career.

Pictures like the snapshot that shows a kitten falling off of Thornburgh’s table during an event at Be Kind to Animals Week.

“We had a lot of animals there [at a proclamation signing]” Thornburg said. “And this little pussycat was on the table kind of as a prop. And all of a sudden I look over and the cat had inched over to the edge of the huge table, and before I could do anything, the cat fell off.

“Fortunately, that old saying about a cat always landing on its feet is true, and the cat was unharmed,” Thornburgh said. “But there was a moment of terror in my mind seeing the headlines about how I had been responsible for the death of somebody’s pet cat.”

But nothing like that could ever happen on his watch.

The 43rd governor of Pennsylvania and former attorney general under President Ronald Reagan, Dick Thornburgh believes in the importance of public service and has devoted his life to it.

Even after he had ended his public service career as a successful Republican politician, he continued to travel and speak to various groups telling them: “Democracy is not a spectator sport.”

Thornburgh was born in Pittsburgh in 1932 and attended a four-room schoolhouse until the eighth grade. He went to Mercersburg Academy where he edited the sports section of the school paper. His love of baseball and the Pittsburgh Pirates continues today.

He earned a degree in engineering from Yale in 1954 but didn’t stay in that field long.

“To be honest, I wasn’t very good,” he said, laughing. He decided instead to attend Pitt’s law school and was an Order of the Coif member.

“Pitt gave me a real opportunity to pursue what would become a lifelong career,” he said.

Thornburgh graduated in 1957 and recently returned to the campus to celebrate his 50th year reunion. He said about two-thirds of the class attended.

He joined the law firm of Kirkpatrick, Pomeroy, Lockhart and Johnson today serves as a counsel in the firm’s Washington, D.C., office.

“I always felt comfortable at the firm,” he said, explaining why he chose to return after nearly 50 years in the public sector.

He and his wife chose to stay in Washington to be close to their many friends and acquaintances but return to Pennsylvania often to visit their four sons, who all live in the state.

Thornburgh wrote in his autobiography “Where the Evidence Leads” that after the 1964 presidential election, in which Barry Goldwater (R) was defeated by Lyndon Johnson (D), a hostess at a dinner party where he had expressed certain negative political feelings suggested he “do something about it.”

Thornburgh agreed, and there was no turning back.

He won the governorship of Pennsylvania in 1978 despite a Democratic majority in the commonwealth. Only 72 days after taking office – he remembers the exact day – a near disaster hit the state when the Three Mile Island power plant near Harrisburg suffered a partial meltdown.

“It’s was a rude introduction to my position as governor,” he said. “We had to deal with something that had never happened before.”

The Washington Star called him “One of the few authentic heroes” of the Three-Mile Island disaster, and Thornburgh was happy to report that, “after about 10 days we were able to tell the people of central Pennsylvania they could return to their homes.”

Among his many accomplishments of his tenure was the consolidation of all of Pennsylvania’s state-owned colleges and universities. Thornburgh also created the Governor’s School program.

“I was pleased that we were able to recreate a Pennsylvania that was oriented towards the future and a lot of our actions have survived,” he said.

Ronald Reagan appointed him as attorney general in 1988 and he served for three years.

Thornburgh said his proudest accomplishment involves the passing of the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990.

“It was the most important piece of Civil Rights legislation since the 1960s,” he said. “It took some giant steps toward moving 54 million Americans into the mainstream of American life and ending discrimination against those with disabilities.

“I had a personal interest in it,” he admitted.