SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (SUBMITTED) -
Former presidential candidate and long time U.S. Senator George McGovern died early Sunday morning. He was surrounded by family and friends at a hospice house in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
KDLT reporter Tom Hanson took an in-depth look back at the life of a South Dakota political icon.
George McGovern was born on July 19, 1922 in Avon. Painfully shy as a child, he grew up in Mitchell where he later excelled in debate.
He attended Dakota Wesleyan University and began taking flying lessons. It's where he would get to know his future wife Eleanor, who grew up in Woonsocket.
As World War II loomed, McGovern volunteered for the U.S. Army Air Corps. He would later pilot 35 missions over German-occupied Europe in a B-24 Liberator bomber called "the Dakota Queen."
After the war, McGovern became a minister like his dad, but it didn't suit him and it wasn't long before he was a professor at Dakota Wesleyan.
He got into politics to effect change, at first supporting other candidates and later running himself.
In 1956 he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. Two years later he would fight off a challenge from another war veteran, former Governor Joe Foss.
McGovern was later elected to the U.S. Senate and became the Democratic Presidential Candidate in 1972.
Footage from the campaign trail shows how popular he was, with cheering crowds at multiple stops.
McGovern ran on a platform that supported withdrawal from the Vietnam War in exchange for the return of American POW's.
He was soundly defeated by President Richard Nixon. He did not even carry his home state of South Dakota, which he would later admit carried a bit of a sting.
McGovern finally left politics for good in 1980, defeated in the republican sweep led by Ronald Reagan. He would make hundreds of thousands of dollars giving speeches around the world.
In the following years he served a number of positions from president of the middle east policy council, to United States Ambassador to the United Nations agencies for food and agriculture.
After the death of his wife Eleanor in 2007, George poured more of his time into his writing.
He was a prolific author, penning more than a half dozen books from "What it means to be a Democrat" to "Terry: My daughter's life and death struggle with alcoholism".
In July of 2012, at his 90th birthday party in Sioux Falls, McGovern talked about his love for his home state.
"This is a great state we live in. I'm going to spend most of my remaining days right here in good old South Dakota," he said.
George McGovern: military pilot, politician, author and South Dakotan, dead at the age of 90.
