Ralph A. Dunn (February 28, 1914 – May 3, 2004) was an American businessman and politician. Ralph A. Dunn was born in

Pinckneyville, Illinois Pinckneyville is a city in and the county seat of Perry County, Illinois, United States. The population was 5,066 at the 2020 census. It is named for Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, an early American diplomat and presidential candidate. Pinckney ...

, on February 28, 1914. He graduated Pinckneyville Community High School. He entered the real estate business in 1939. Dunn was also in the concrete business and owned a car dealership. He was married to Ellen Fones, had four children, and lived in Du Quoin, Illinois. He was a delegate to the

1968 Republican National Convention The 1968 Republican National Convention was held at the Miami Beach Convention Center in Miami Beach, Dade County, Florida, from August 5 to August 8, 1968, to select the party's nominee in the general election. It nominated former Vice President ...

. The next year, he was elected as a delegate to the Sixth Illinois Constitutional Convention, which wrote the most recent version of the

Illinois Constitution The Constitution of the State of Illinois is the governing document of the state of Illinois. There have been four Illinois Constitutions; the fourth and current version was adopted in 1970. The current constitution is referred to as the "Constit ...

. Dunn served in the

Illinois House of Representatives The Illinois House of Representatives is the lower house of the Illinois General Assembly. The body was created by the first Illinois Constitution adopted in 1818. The House under the current constitution as amended in 1980 consists of 118 re ...

from 1973 to 1985 and was a Republican. He then served in the Illinois State Senate from 1985 until 1995. After a tough reelection fight in the 1992 general election against Democratic candidate Barbara Brown, Dunn resigned from the Illinois Senate in 1995 to accept a position with the

Illinois Treasurer The Treasurer of Illinois is an elected official of the U.S. state of Illinois. The office was created by the Constitution of Illinois. Current Occupant The current Treasurer of Illinois is Democrat Mike Frerichs. He was first elected to head t ...

. Republicans appointed

David Luechtefeld David Luechtefeld (born November 8, 1940) is a former Republican Party (United States), Republican member of the Illinois Senate, representing the 58th district from September 1995 until January 2017. During his tenure, he served as the Deputy Min ...

his successor. On May 3, 2004, Dunn died of complications from

pneumonia Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of productive or dry cough, chest pain, fever, and difficulty breathing. The severity ...

in a hospital in Du Quoin, Illinois.'Ralph A. Dunn, 90,' Chicago Tribune, Imran Vittachi, May 6, 2004

Notes

1914 births 2004 deaths People from Pinckneyville, Illinois Businesspeople from Illinois Republican Party members of the Illinois House of Representatives Republican Party Illinois state senators 20th-century American legislators People from Du Quoin, Illinois 20th-century American businesspeople Deaths from pneumonia in Illinois Members of Illinois constitutional conventions 20th-century Illinois politicians {{Illinois-Ilrepresentative-stub