Ex-governor Goddard is dead at 86

The 6-foot-3-inch Goddard, who died Wednesday in Phoenix at 86 after a long illness, was one of only a handful of Tucsonans to serve as governor in recent memory.

When voters denied him a second term 40 years ago, he became the last incumbent governor to lose at the polls.

Yet Goddard remained active in politics, serving as chairman of the state Dem-ocratic Party and helping oversee the Central Arizona Project, the 336-mile aqueduct that he championed as governor.

"That tells you the guy was sincere," said former Tucson Mayor George Miller. "He really cared about this state. He had a desire to serve. That may sound trite, but it's true."

Goddard was a resident of Paradise Valley for many years. His health deteriorated after he broke his hip last year while on vacation. His death was announced by his son, Attorney General Terry Goddard.

"He loved Arizona passionately," Terry Goddard said, "and by plane, Jeep and on foot, he covered almost every inch of it."

Goddard piloted his own plane to Arizona cities and towns as part of four gubernatorial campaigns, in 1962, 1964, 1966 and 1968. Only the 1964 bid was successful.

"Arizona deserves more than a state administration which lives in the past, refuses to accept the present, and fears the future," he declared in May of that year as he kicked off his campaign against Republican Richard Kleindienst.

With the campaign slogan "Go Goddard" and a mascot, the roadrunner, that he borrowed from New Mexico, Goddard became Arizona's 12th governor in a year that saw gains for Democrats in all levels of government. He beat Kleindienst, who went on to become U.S. attorney general under President Richard Nixon, by more than 30,000 votes.

Also on the ballot in 1964 was Goddard's friend Barry Goldwater, the U.S. senator from Arizona who was running for president. Goddard had met Goldwater years earlier while in the military.

In an oral-history interview with Arizona State University, Goddard said that "meeting Barry" in the service was something of a milestone.

"That was the first time I had any connection with Arizona at all," he said.

Born Aug. 8, 1919, in Clayton, Mo., Goddard moved to Tucson in 1946 after his Army discharge. The reason was that his wife, Judy, whom he had married two years earlier, suffered from rheumatoid arthritis. She died in 1999.

"It was a nifty little town," Goddard told ASU. "Tucson was very different from Phoenix. It had sort of a microcosm of the arts."

That artistic inclination appealed to Goddard, who as a student at Harvard University sang in the glee club and acted in the Classics Club production of Aristophanes' "The Birds." Goddard also rowed as a member of the university's varsity crew.

Goddard maintained an interest in the arts, and in 1959 was named Tucson's Man of the Year in part because of his role in establishing the Tucson Festival of the Arts. He also helped establish the city's Watercolor Guild.

Goddard's 1964 election victory marked the first time since the 1948 election of Dan Garvey that a Tucsonan would win the governorship. And it has happened only once since, in 1974, with the election of Raul Castro.

"Sam and I were outsiders," said Castro, a University of Arizona law school classmate of Goddard's. "We had to do a lot of hustling to get accepted."

Castro, now living in Nogales, recalled Goddard was an articulate but "sort of quiet" student who did not seem particularly interested in politics. "I never thought he would run for governor," he said.

Goddard told ASU that his law school graduating class had only seven students. Among them was Morris K. Udall, who went on to represent Southern Arizona in Congress for 16 terms.

Goddard opened a law practice in Tucson the year he graduated in 1949. His involvement in politics began in the late 1950s, and in 1960 he was elected to the first of two stints as chairman of the state Democratic Party. He stepped down from the post in 1962 to mount his first run for governor, against Paul Fannin. He served again as party chairman from 1979 to 1989.

Among the young staffers who were part of Goddard's only administration was Dennis DeConcini, who would go on to serve as Pima County attorney before winning election to the U.S. Senate.

"I'm very sad today," DeCon-cini said after learning of Goddard's death. "He was a very principled guy, very conscious of people's rights. He preached that and he practiced that."

Among Goddard's activities after leaving public office was serving for 17 years on the Central Arizona Water Conservation District board.

Besides Terry, Goddard is survived by two other sons, Tim and Bill, and his second wife, Myra Ann. Funeral arrangements are pending.