1/6/2012:
North Dakota Governor Allen Olson took office on this date in 1981. The twenty-eighth Governor of the state, Olson unseated incumbent Governor Arthur Link to win the seat. Olson served two terms as the state’s Attorney General from 1972 until 1980 before deciding to run for governor.
A long-time Republican, Olson was born to Elmer and Olga Olson on November 5, 1938, in Rolla, North Dakota, but was raised on his parents’ wheat and barley farm near Sarles. His father was a moderate Democrat on the county board and school board, and Olson credits his political interest to early debates the two shared. He attended the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks, first as an undergraduate and later as a law student, graduating in 1963. He became a Judge Advocate General’s Corps lawyer in the United States Army, and served until 1967. He returned home to marry Barbara Benner of Grand Forks in 1964. Later, he became the Chief Military Justice in Munich, West Germany.
When his military enlistment was over, Olson returned to North Dakota and served as assistant director of the Legislative Research Council, studying strip mining, soil banks, and land reclamation. In 1969, he entered private practice in Bismarck, but decided to run for Attorney General only three years later. With the son of the retiring Attorney General as his opponent, Olson won the office by a slim majority of only 168 votes. Once in office, however, his effectiveness and determination led to an easier re-election in 1976. After his inauguration on January 6, 1981, Olson’s activities and interests as governor were varied. He worked with the Task Force on Drunk Driving, supported the Garrison Diversion Project, fought railroad abandonment, and approved the purchase of the Cross Ranch State Park. Shortly after his defeat in 1984, however, Olson relocated to Minneapolis to join the law firm of Fredrikson and Byron. He claimed that had he stayed in North Dakota, “[he] always would have been former Governor Olson and would have been riding in parades the rest of [his] life.”
In 1987, Olson purchased an alloy die-casting company in New Hope, Minnesota, as part of a joint venture. He was appointed to serve as a commissioner of the International Joint Commission of Canada and the United States in 2002 by President George W. Bush. He and his family currently live in Eden Prairie, Minnesota.
Dakota Datebook written by Jayme L. Job
Sources:
http://history.nd.gov/exhibits/governors/governors28.html
http://history.nd.gov/archives/manuscripts/inventory/30180.html.