The mayors as persons, III: Canfield to Wood, 1960–today — and the count, checked

1960 – NOVEMBER 2026

Joseph M. Canfield, 1960–1963: The Democrat who won the election of 1959 did it, in De Kever's words, "by the largest margin in the city's history" to that date. Joseph Canfield took office in January 1960 — the last mayor of the sixteen-year Democratic hold. In 1963 he sat on the Board of Public Safety as mayor, on the directory's page. His defeat on 5 November 1963, 7,561 votes to 5,815, is the pivot of the modern succession, and his opponent's profile follows.

Margaret "Maggie" Prickett, 1964–1979: Prickett owned a supermarket in Twin Branch. She decided to run for mayor in 1963, defeated two other candidates in the Republican primary, and challenged Canfield on a well-organised campaign, a widespread desire for change, and her own personal popularity. A record turnout gave her the election — making her Mishawaka's first woman mayor and, as the Story of Mishawaka section records, the third woman elected mayor in Indiana. The sweep went all the way down the ticket: the Republicans took every other office — all seven council seats, the clerk-treasurer's office, and the city judgeship. "Never before and not since," De Kever writes, "has either political party in Mishawaka suffered such a lopsided defeat." She won three more terms — 1967, 1971 and 1975. De Kever's book prints her service as "from 1964-1980"; the arithmetic of four terms and of Robert Kovach's victory in November 1979 puts her last day at the end of 1979, sixteen years in the office, and both phrasings stand, unsmoothed. Her administration's acts — the Merrifield complex of 1968 and the University Park Mall annexation the Story of Mishawaka section calls her greatest legacy — are carried in the Story of Mishawaka section, parks and annexation records.

Robert "Bob" Kovach, 1980–1983: The Democrat Robert Kovach won the election of 1979 and served one term — in the Story of Mishawaka section's summary, the only Democratic mayor of Mishawaka between Margaret Prickett's victory in 1963 and the present day. His single term divides the two long Republican mayoralties that frame the modern city.

Robert C. Beutter, 1984–2003: Beutter, a Republican, was elected in November 1983 and held the office for five terms — twenty years, 1984 to 2003, the longest mayoralty in Mishawaka's record. The riverfront park that carries the modern downtown bears his name. He died on 2 January 2020. The city's financial report for 2004 already lists the government of his successor.

Jeff Rea, 2004–2010: Rea succeeded Beutter at the start of 2004 and resigned the office in August 2010 to head the St. Joseph County Chamber of Commerce — a mayor leaving City Hall not at an election but for the region's business chair, and setting up the one succession in the modern record that no election decided.

Dave Wood, from 7 September 2010: The vacancy Rea left was filled as Indiana law provides: the Republican precinct committeemen of the city chose the successor in caucus, and their choice was Dave Wood — a councilman of eleven or twelve years from the Second District (the city's 2004 financial report already lists David Allen Wood among the council members, on a term running 2004–2007), and a vice president of 1st Source Bank before that. Wood was sworn in on 7 September 2010, then won the office at the election of 2011 and was re-elected in 2015, 2019 and 2023. He serves as president of Aim, Accelerate Indiana Municipalities, for 2025. The Story of Mishawaka section counts him the city's twenty-first mayor — a count tested in the next paragraph rather than assumed.

The count, checked, and the four names it implies: The Government fragment's test stands whole here because it is a fact about the persons: the succession assembled in these three articles names seventeen mayors in all — Fisher, Mix, Frank, Herzog, Gaylor, Dodge, Petro, Castleman, Brady, Walton, Doyle, Canfield, Prickett, Kovach, Beutter, Rea and Wood. If Wood is the twenty-first, twenty holders came before him, and four more officeholders stand inside the succession's open stretches — the elections of 1925 and 1934 and the unsettled starts of the 1940s and 1950s — than the sources read can name, counting each officeholder once. The arithmetic agrees with everything else the record shows; it does not supply the four names, and these profiles do not pretend otherwise. A complete numbered line, first mayor to current holder, is therefore not yet printable: what is printable is seventeen profiles, six election-level holes inside the affected profiles, and the four-name implication of the count, all standing open together.

Sources:

1. The Government fragment of this build — the 1963 sweep and modern-mayors articles whole, including De Kever's account of the 1963 election, the Prickett "1964-1980" variance, and the count test against the Story of Mishawaka section's "twenty-first mayor."
2. The Story of Mishawaka section fragment of this build — Kovach's single term, Beutter's five terms and death, Rea's resignation, and Wood's council years, bank post, caucus choice, swearing of 7 September 2010 and elections of 2011–2023.