Joe Kernan: the catcher, the prisoner, the governor

1946 – 2020

Joseph E. Kernan (1946–2020): the fullest public life of the city's modern era, and the one the Government section expressly left for this page — his mayoralty (1988–97), lieutenant governorship, and governorship stand there; what belongs here is the whole man. He was born on 8 April 1946 in Chicago, the oldest of nine children, and raised in South Bend, where he attended St. Joseph's High School. At Notre Dame he took a degree in government in 1968 and caught for the baseball team. He entered the Navy in 1969 and became a naval flight officer, flying the RA-5C Vigilante with squadron RVAH-7 from the carrier Kitty Hawk; from February 1972 he flew 26 missions over Laos and North Vietnam. On 7 May 1972 his aircraft was shot down over North Vietnam and he was captured.

For a time his family was given reason to presume him dead. He spent about eleven months as a prisoner of war at Hỏa Lò — the "Hanoi Hilton" — and was repatriated on 27 March 1973, remaining on active duty until December 1974. He held the Distinguished Flying Cross, two Purple Hearts, and the Navy Commendation Medal. After his discharge he married Maggie McCullough and went to work for Procter & Gamble in Cincinnati from late 1974 as a manufacturing supervisor, before coming home to South Bend — city comptroller from 1980 to 1984, then the mayoralty, then Indianapolis: lieutenant governor from 1997, and, on Frank O'Bannon's death in office, governor of Indiana from 13 September 2003 to 10 January 2005, losing the 2004 election to Mitch Daniels. Notre Dame gave him an honorary doctorate and heard him as commencement speaker in 1998, and after the governorship he taught political science there. He died on 29 July 2020, aged 74, of Alzheimer's disease. The arc needs no ornament: a South Bend catcher flew reconnaissance over North Vietnam at 26, survived the Hanoi Hilton, and came home to run his city and his state.

Sources:

1. State of Indiana, governors' history — the South Bend upbringing, the comptroller and mayoral years, the succession of 13 September 2003, and the 2004 election.
2. University of Notre Dame — the 1968 government degree and the baseball catching, the 1998 honorary doctorate and commencement address, and the post-governorship teaching.
3. POW Network — the RVAH-7 service aboard Kitty Hawk, the 26 missions, the shootdown of 7 May 1972, the Hỏa Lò imprisonment, the repatriation of 27 March 1973, and the decorations.
4. Associated Press / Indiana Public Media, obituary (July 2020) — the Chicago birth on 8 April 1946, the Procter & Gamble years from late 1974, and the death on 29 July 2020 from Alzheimer's disease.
5. Government section of this history (banked) — the comptrollership 1980–84 and the mayoralty 1988–97, with the earlier life expressly deferred to this profile.