Alvin O'Konski

Who was Alvin O'Konski?

Alvin Edward O'Konski was a United States Representative from Wisconsin.

Born on a farm near Kewaunee, Wisconsin, O'Konski attended the local public schools and the University of Iowa. He graduated from State Teachers College in Oshkosh, Wisconsin in 1927 and from the University of Wisconsin in 1932. He was a high school teacher in Omro and Oconto from 1926 to 1929, a member of the faculty of Oregon State College at Corvallis from 1929 to 1931, and a faculty member at the University of Detroit from 1936 to 1938. He was superintendent of schools in Pulaski, Wisconsin from 1932 to 1935 and an instructor at a junior college in Coleraine, Minnesota in 1936. He was an educator, journalist, lecturer, editor and publisher at Hurley, Wisconsin from 1940 to 1942.

In 1942, O'Konski was elected as a Republican to the Seventy-eighth Congress. He was then reelected to the fourteen succeeding Congresses serving from January 3, 1943 till January 3, 1973. While in congress, he represented Wisconsin's 10th congressional district. He lost a bid for the Republican senatorial nomination to succeed Joseph McCarthy in 1957.