Tony P. Hall
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Tony Patrick Hall (born 16 January 1942, in Dayton, Ohio) is an American politician who served as a Democrat from Ohio in the U.S. House of Representatives for more than 20 years.
He recently served as ambassador to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and chief of the U.S. mission to the U.N. Agencies in Rome, which includes the World Food Program and the International Fund for Agricultural Development.
Ambassador Hall is currently committed to fostering a Middle East peace initiative. This initiative is being coordinated through the Center for the Study of the Presidency, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has pledged to give $1 million dollars to this project via the U.S. Agency for International Development.
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[edit] Personal
Hall graduated from Fairmont High School in Kettering, Ohio in 1960. He received a bachelors degree from Denison University (Granville, Ohio) in 1964. While in college, Hall was named Little All-American football tailback and the Ohio Conference's Most Valuable Player (1963).
After college, Hall served as Peace Corps Volunteer in Thailand teaching English in 1966–1967, an experience that contributed to his strong interest in world hunger issues.
[edit] Political Career
After working as a real estate agent, Hall served as an Ohio state representative from 1969 to 1973 and as an Ohio state senator from 1973 to 1979. In 1974, Hall ran for Ohio secretary of state and lost to Republican incumbent Ted W. Brown.
Hall was first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1978 to succeed Rep. Charles W. Whalen, Jr., a moderate Republican. In the 1980s, Hall became a born-again Christian and changed his position on abortion from pro-choice to pro-life. Hall served in Congress for 24 years, longer than any previous U.S. representative representing Dayton's district.
During his tenure in Congress, Hall's primary focus was addressing hunger around the world. He made frequent trips to more than 100 countries such as Sierra Leone where hunger was widespread. He was chairman of the Select Committee on Hunger from 1989 to 1993. When the committee was abolished, Hall fasted for 22 days in protest.[1],Hall was nominated three times for the Nobel Peace Prize He was founder of the Congressional Friends of Human Rights Monitors and the Congressional Hunger Center. Hall served terms on the foreign affairs and small business committees before being appointed to the House Rules Committee in 1981.
Twice during his tenure as U.S. representative, Hall introduced legislation that would have apologized for slavery.[2]
Hall was an Ohio delegate to the 2000 Democratic National Convention.
He served in the House into 2002, when President George W. Bush nominated him to succeed George McGovern as U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Agencies for Food and Agriculture. Hall's confirmation to the U.N. post was held up for several months but was confirmed and sworn into the post in September 2002.
[edit] Post Electoral Career
Most recently he authored a book, with Tom Price, called Changing the Face of Hunger: One Man's Story of How Liberals, Conservatives, Democrats, Republicans, and People of Faith Are Joining Forces to Help the Hungry, the Poor, and the Oppressed.
Hall serves on the Board of Advisors of Opportunity International, a charity that seeks to end poverty through microcredit lending to entrepreneurs.
In March, 2007 Hall announced he will work with the Center for the Study of the Presidency to work with the religious leaders of the Holy Land, principally amongst Muslims, Christians and Jews in the Middle East. Under a $1 million grant from USAID that will be split evenly between an economics-based effort and a faith-based effort, Hall will work with religious leaders to help prepare the way for peace in the Middle East. Hall will receive no salary for his work.[3]
[edit] Family
Hall and his wife, Janet Sue Dick, were married in 1973.
Hall's father, Dave Hall was a Republican mayor of Dayton, Ohio. Hall's son Matt died in 1996 at age 15 of leukemia. Hall's brother Sam was a state legislator.
| Preceded by Charles W. Whalen, Jr. |
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Ohio's 3rd congressional district 1979–2003 |
Succeeded by Mike Turner |
[edit] See also
- List of United States political appointments that crossed party lines
- Election Results, U.S. Representative from Ohio, 3rd District
- Election Results, Ohio Secretary of State
- List of United States Representatives from Ohio
[edit] References
- ^ Instead of feeling guilty about the hungry, Hall feels responsible, National Catholic Reporter, April 23, 1993
- ^ U.S. State Department Biography of Tony Hall
- ^ Built on faith: Tony Hall leads Middle East peace initiative Dayton Jewish Observer
