from the April 2, 1997 issue of The Country Chronicle
Hanover, NH–Lane Dwinell, 90, of Hanover, the only person in New Hampshire history to hold the offices of House Speaker, Senate President and Governor in successive terms, died Thursday, March 27th, 1997, in his home at Kendal at Hanover.
He was born Nov. 14, 1906 in Newport, VT, the son of Dean and Ruth (Lane) Dwinell. He attended schools in Newport and Pasadena, CA before moving to Lebanon for his senior year in high school. He graduated from Lebanon High School in 1924, from Dartmouth College in 1928 and from Amos Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College in 1929.
In 1932 he married Elizabeth Cushman of Lebanon, and they lived for a time in New York City where Gov. Dwinell was employed in the Treasurer’s office of General Motors Corp. from 1929 to 1936. They returned to Lebanon in 1936 when Mr. Dwinell joined his father in Carter & Churchill Co., the family-owned clothing manufacturer that was later known as Profile Skiwear. He was actively involved in that business for 31 years, most of them as Chief Executive Officer and it grew to become a nationally recognized maker of skiing apparel.
In 1946 and 1947 he was president of the New Hampshire Manufacturer’s Association. He was also involved over the years as a director of the Northern Railroad, Granite State Electric Co., Currier & Co. in Lebanon, the Lebanon Industrial Development Authority, the New England Council Vermont Motor Inns, and the New Hampshire Business Development Corporation. He was a longtime trustee of Mary Hitchcock Memorial Hospital, and also served as a trustee of Colby-Sawyer College in New London, Dartmouth College, and the University of New Hampshire. He was given honorary degrees from the later two, as well as Suffolk University and New England College.
He was associated with the National Bank of Lebanon (now Citizens Bank) for more than 30 years beginning in 1947, when he was elected to the Board of Directors. He was chairman of the board from 1968 to 1979, during which time the bank became the first in the state to open a branch office.
He became active in local affairs shortly after his return to Lebanon, winning election to the town budget committee and serving as a Special Justice of the Lebanon Municipal Court.
His entry into state politics came when he was elected to represent Lebanon at the 1948 Constitutional Convention. He was also elected to the legislature that year, by which time he had already served four years on the state Board of Education.
He chaired the House of Ways and Means Committee in his first term, and in his second he was elected Speaker. Following that term, he was elected in 1952 to the stat Senate, where he was chosen President. He followed up that two-year stint by winning the Governor’s office in November 1954, and was re-elected in 1956.
During his gubernatorial tenure he applied private sector principles to state government by tightening accounting procedures and gave state employees healthy raises to diminish excessive turnover. He also signed a bill that provided state aid for school construction, and another that allowed groups of school districts to band together to form cooperative districts. Under that bill, districts that banded together were given extra money for school construction.
The state’s interstate highway system also was laid out during his tenure, and he also hosted President Dwight D. Eisenhower, which set the stage for the next phase of his career.
After leaving state government in 1959, Gov. Dwinell was appointed by President Eisenhower to be Assistant Secretary of State for Administration, overseeing the department’s budget, personnel, and embassy operations, a job that took him and Mrs. Dwinell to U.S. embassies around the world.
He left that post in 1961 and returned to Carter & Churchill, but re-entered the federal government in 1969, when President Richard M. Nixon appointed him an administrator of the Agency for International Development. That job also entailed much foreign travel, and he held it until 1971. He also was appointed by Nixon in 1971 to the Board of Foreign Scholarships, and reappointed in 1974 by President Ford.
In 1972 he was chairman of President Nixon’s re-election campaign in New Hampshire, and Nixon’s official announcement of his intention to seek a second term was made in the form of a personal letter to Gov. Dwinell, which he was authorized to make public.
He also served as chairman of President Ronald Reagan’s New Hampshire campaigns in 1980 and 1984.
His involvement in politics at the state and federal levels led to his attending seven Republican National Conventions from 1952 to 1988. He chaired the New Hampshire delegation to those conventions in 1956, 1968, 1972, 1980 and 1984.
He and Mrs. Dwinell underwrote many community causes during their more than 60 years in Lebanon, including a wing of the Lebanon Library, the pool at the Carter-Witherall Center, and the publishing of a new Lebanon history in 1994.
He was a member of the Lebanon Rotary Club, Theta Delta Chi Fraternity, Sons of American Revolution, Sons of Colonial Wars, Moose and Grange.
He was predeceased by a sister, Eleanor Boreilla, and his wife Elizabeth C. Dwinell, who died on Oct.29, 1996. He is survived by nieces and nephews.
Memorial services following a private burial will be held on Monday, March 31, at 11 am in the First Congregational Church of Lebanon. The Rev. Richard N. Slater will officiate. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to: The Alice Peck Day Memorial Hospital, 10 Alice Peck Day Drive , Lebanon, NH 03766. Arrangements are under the direction of the Ricker Funeral Home of Lebanon, NH.