Arthur Rossa "Pete" Giesen Jr. (August 8, 1932 – April 2, 2021) was an

American politician The politics of the United States function within a framework of a constitutional federal republic and presidential system, with three distinct branches that share powers. These are: the U.S. Congress which forms the legislative branch, a bic ...

and businessman, who represented (part time) a district in the

Blue Ridge Mountains The Blue Ridge Mountains are a physiographic province of the larger Appalachian Mountains range. The mountain range is located in the Eastern United States, and extends 550 miles southwest from southern Pennsylvania through Maryland, West Virgin ...

including

Waynesboro, Virginia Waynesboro (formerly Flack) is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia. It is a principal city of the Staunton-Waynesboro Metropolitan Statistical Area. Waynesboro is located in the Shenandoah Valley and is surrounded by Augusta Cou ...

in the

Virginia House of Delegates The Virginia House of Delegates is one of the two parts of the Virginia General Assembly, the other being the Senate of Virginia. It has 100 members elected for terms of two years; unlike most states, these elections take place during odd-numbe ...

as a

Republican Republican can refer to: Political ideology * An advocate of a republic, a type of government that is not a monarchy or dictatorship, and is usually associated with the rule of law. ** Republicanism, the ideology in support of republics or agains ...

for more than three decades.

Early and family life

Giesen was born in

Radford, Virginia Radford (formerly Lovely Mount, Central City, English Ferry and Ingle's Ferry) is an independent city in the U.S. state of Virginia. As of 2020, the population was 16,070 by the United States Census Bureau. For statistical purposes, the Bureau ...

on August 8, 1932 to Arthur Rossa Giesen and his wife,

Charlotte Giesen Charlotte Milton Caldwell Giesen (January 27, 1907 – January 28, 1995) (nicknamed "Pinkie") was a Virginia politician and news editor. A lifelong resident of Radford, Virginia, she served in the Virginia House of Delegates from 1958 to 1961, be ...

(née Charlotte Milton Caldwell), during the

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

. He attended

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

, where he received his bachelor's degree in 1954. He then went on to earn his

MBA A Master of Business Administration (MBA; also Master's in Business Administration) is a postgraduate degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration such as accounti ...

from

Harvard Business School Harvard Business School (HBS) is the graduate business school of Harvard University, a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. It is consistently ranked among the top business schools in the world and offers a large full-time MBA p ...

in 1956. Both of his parents served on the Radford city council, with his father serving as Radford's mayor for a time. During the

Massive Resistance Massive resistance was a strategy declared by U.S. Senator Harry F. Byrd Sr. of Virginia and his brother-in-law James M. Thomson, who represented Alexandria in the Virginia General Assembly, to get the state's white politicians to pass laws and p ...

crisis, the Democratic

Byrd Organization The Byrd machine, or Byrd organization, was a political machine of the Democratic Party led by former Governor and U.S. Senator Harry F. Byrd (1887–1966) that dominated Virginia politics for much of the 20th century. From the 1890s until the l ...

proposed the closure of Virginia's public schools in an effort to prevent racial desegregation required by the

United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

decision in

Brown v. Board of Education ''Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka'', 347 U.S. 483 (1954), was a landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that U.S. state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools are unconstitutional, even if the segregat ...

. Giesen's mother was editor of the

Women's page The women's page (sometimes called home page or women's section) of a newspaper was a section devoted to covering news assumed to be of interest to women. Women's pages started out in the 19th century as society pages and eventually morphed into ...

in the local newspaper, ran against the incumbent Byrd Democrat, and won election to the Virginia House of Delegates in 1958. Pete Giesen married Dorothy, with whom he had three sons and three daughters, but later divorced her and married Patricia Elliot.

Career

Giesen served as President and Treasurer of the Augusta Steel Corporation, as well as vice-president of the Giesen-Caldwell Agency, Inc. He later formed the New Options Group, Inc. in Waynesboro, Virginia and served on the executive boards of both the Augusta Steel Corporation and the Virginia-Central Valley Bank (that merged into Crestar Bank). Active in his Lutheran Church, he served on the national executive council from 1978 to 1982 as well as helped found the Innsbrook Kiwanis Club in 1990 (having previously been a member of the Verona Kiwanis Club). He continued the family's political tradition by running for the

as a Republican in 1961 to represent Waynesboro, but initially came in third in a two-member district. Two years later, in 1963, he came in second, since Democrat Felix E. Edmunds, who had come in second the previous election (and had only lost in 1955 because the district had briefly become a single-candidate one), had decided to concentrate on his legal practice. While Giesen still couldn't outpoll Democrat

George M. Cochran George Moffett Cochran IV (April 20, 1912 – January 22, 2011) was a Virginia lawyer, banker and legislator who later served as a justice of the Virginia Supreme Court. Cochran served part-time representing Staunton, Virginia in the Virginia Gene ...

(who had bucked the

Byrd Machine The Byrd machine, or Byrd organization, was a political machine of the Democratic Party led by former Governor and U.S. Senator Harry F. Byrd (1887–1966) that dominated Virginia politics for much of the 20th century. From the 1890s until the l ...

during Massive Resistance), he did outpoll Harry L. Nash Jr. and was seated in the House of Delegates. Voters re-elected Giesen multiple times. Initially Waynesboro area voters elected Giesen from what was numbered the 10th District, but which became the 15th after the 1970 census reapportionment, and was briefly the 10th district again in 1981, but finally became the 25th district. Giesen had risen to assistant minority leader and then minority leader. On September 11, 1974, he resigned his House seat and leadership position, hoping to win the special election to succeed H. Dunlop Dawbarn in the state senate. Thanks in part to another redistricting and the

Watergate Scandal The Watergate scandal was a major political scandal in the United States involving the administration of President Richard Nixon from 1972 to 1974 that led to Nixon's resignation. The scandal stemmed from the Nixon administration's continual ...

, which led to the Democratic landslide of 1974, engineer

Frank W. Nolen Frank William Nolen (born December 26, 1939) is an American politician who served as a member of the Virginia Senate. Winning a 1974 special election to succeed H. Dunlop Dawbarn after his retirement, he lost reelection in 1975 to J. Marshall Col ...

defeated Giesen by 405 votes. Giesen subsequently ran successfully for his old House seat in 1975. He served during most of the 1970s with Bath County's former Commonwealth attorney, Democrat Erwin S. Solomon, in a two-member district. Giesen handily defeated Democrat Thomas E. Roberts in 1985, and faced no opposition in 1982, 1983, 1987, 1991 or 1993 as his district became the 25th (and Solomon remained in the single-member 15th). Giesen served in the part-time position until 1996, and was replaced by his former legislative aide, R. Steven Landes. From 2007 until his death, Giesen taught courses on state and local government at

James Madison University James Madison University (JMU, Madison, or James Madison) is a public research university in Harrisonburg, Virginia. Founded in 1908 as the State Normal and Industrial School for Women at Harrisonburg, the institution was renamed Madison Coll ...

in Harrisonburg, about 20 miles north of his Augusta County home. Arthur Rossa "Pete" Giesen, Jr. died on Friday, April 2, 2021, at the age of 88.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Giesen, Pete 1932 births 2021 deaths Republican Party members of the Virginia House of Delegates People from Radford, Virginia People from Waynesboro, Virginia Yale University alumni Harvard Business School alumni 20th-century American politicians James Madison University faculty People from Augusta County, Virginia Businesspeople from Virginia