Howard Cannon

Howard Walter Cannon was a politician from the State of Nevada and served four consecutive terms in the U.S. Senate from 1959 to 1983.

Cannon was born on January 26, 1912, in St. George, Utah. He held degrees from Northern Arizona University and the University of Arizona Law School. He served as a reference and research attorney for the Utah State Senate in 1939. He entered public service when he was elected as county attorney for Washington County, Utah, in 1940. The outbreak of World War II sidetracked his political career and he served in the U.S. Army for a year and then the U.S. Army Air Corps for four years, achieving the rank of lieutenant colonel. He later served in the Army Air Forces Air Reserve as a major general. He was decorated with the Purple Heart, the Silver Star, the Legion of Merit, the Distinguished Flying Cross, and the Air Medal (three).

In 1946, he established law offices in Las Vegas. In 1949, he was elected city attorney for Las Vegas, Nevada, and served for four terms. In 1958, he defeated the incumbent to become a U.S. Senator. He lost re-election in 1982 after becoming ensnared in a bribe scandal.[1] He remained in Washington as an aviation and defense consultant for eleven years and then retired to Las Vegas.

On February 2, 1988, President Ronald Reagan nominated Cannon to the inaugural Board of Trustees of the Goldwater Scholarship program. The U.S. Senate confirmed Cannon by unanimous consent on March 3, 1988.

Cannon had an interest in music and during his high school summers, he worked as a bell hop at the North Rim Lodge along the Grand Canyon where he formed a small band to play his saxophone to entertain guests. While studying at the University of Arizona he was the director of the university pep orchestra. Between the summer of his second and third year he directed this group at a hotel in Seattle, Washington. in the summer of 1936, he directed an orchestra of four, performing on the SS Jefferson on a cruise from Seattle to Yokohama, Japan.

Cannon and his wife, Dorothy Pace Cannon, had two children. He was a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He was a grand-nephew of George Q. Cannon. He died on March 5, 2002.

Source: Wikipedia, “Howard Cannon”