Inducted: 2003

Throughout his 24 years in the U.S. House of Representatives, Congressman Doug Bereuter has been an outstanding champion of cooperatives, both in his home state of Nebraska and overseas. His steadfast leadership has greatly enhanced international cooperative development and has helped create new business opportunities for U.S. cooperatives.

Bereuter’s work includes leading the effort for passage of landmark legislation recognizing the role of overseas cooperatives in the promotion of democratic principles, introducing provisions that co-ops be given priority for loans and guarantees from the Overseas Private Investment Corp, promoting the use of cooperatives in hunger alleviation, and writing the funding provisions supporting the Farmer-to-Farmer program.

He also introduced the Overseas Cooperative Development Act, which directs USAID to review its development programs and expand the use of cooperatives for agriculture, financial systems, infrastructure, and housing and community services. Domestically he supported tax credits for farmers investing in value-added agricultural property, the Credit Union Membership Access Act, and regulatory relief for farmers and farm retailers in the National Highway System Designation Act.

Through his personal commitment to people helping people, Congressman Bereuter is a friend to cooperatives.

Inducted:1998

Charlie Stenholm, a cotton producer elected to Congress in 1978, has been a leading supporter of cooperative initiatives for the past 20 years. Prior to his election, he was President of the Texas Rural Electric Cooperative Association and Executive Vice President of the Rolling Plains Cotton Growers Association. In all roles he has demonstrated outstanding innovation, dedication, and determination in advancing cooperative ideals and goals As a Congressman, Stenholm consistently ensures that those representing cooperatives are heard. In addition, his colleagues frequently called upon him to address questions about the role, purpose, and significance of cooperatives nationwide.

Stenholm initiated and supported tax systems benefiting co-ops, and developed the legislation to reorganize the U.S. Department of Agriculture and to reform the nation’s crop insurance program. It was his knowledge of the foundation of the cooperative system that enabled him to do this.

Throughout his career Stenholm has been a strong and vocal leader of the cooperative movement. He has admirably represented cooperatives at both the state and national level, and has done much to strengthen the entire cooperative system.

Orville L. Freeman

Inducted:1993

Orville L. Freeman has been a dynamic force in cooperatives in the United States for more than 40 years. Freeman served for three terms as Governor of Minnesota, and served as Secretary of the United States Department of Agriculture from 1961 to 1969. As Governor, Freeman worked endlessly to develop cooperatives in Minnesota, and was a pioneer in proclaiming October a Co-op Month. As Secretary, he was determined to make cooperative development a priority for the entire Department. He urged Congress to increase substantially its commitment to cooperative development, and was responsible for it’s more than doubling the Farmer Cooperative Service budget between fiscal 1968 and 1970. He also prevailed on President Johnson to tape a Co-op Month message for radio broadcast.

Since then, Freeman has served on many boards and committees in leadership positions, including the Presidential Commission of Public Affairs, Agriculture Council of America, and the United Nations Association. In these positions, as well as in his work as president of Business International and as a lawyer, he has always been a strong advocate for cooperatives. As a political and agricultural leader, he has been respected for the breadth of his understanding, pragmatism, and courage in promoting ways to develop sustainable agriculture worldwide and alleviate hunger.

Chalmers P. Wylie (1920 – 1998)

Inducted:1990

Congressman Chalmers P. Wylie, long a champion of the cooperative form of business enterprise in the halls of Congress, was the key person in marshalling the crucially needed bipartisan support to pass the legislation creating the National Cooperative Bank (NCB) to finance and assist in building consumer cooperatives. Later, as ranking minority member of the House Committee on Banking, when NCB was threatened with dissolution, he engineered its survival by insisting that it receive its final capital appropriation and by using his prestige in Congress and the White House to garner support for legislation to ‘privatize’ the Bank. He did what needed to be done at critical times.

Congressman Wylie’s stalwart advocacy of NCB, now a major development leader owned by its member-users, was particularly heroic in view of the powerful opposition to it. The self-help and ‘privatization’ concepts, which Congressman Wylie advocated in the National Cooperative Bank legislation, became key elements of government policy.

Congressman Ed Jones

Inducted:1989

Ed Jones’ devoted legislative leadership on behalf of rural Americans and his support of cooperatives spans many decades. He was an active member of his local credit and telephone cooperatives. For many years he was president of the Yorkville Telephone Cooperative, and served on the board of the National Telephone Cooperative Association for 12 years.

During his eight terms in Congress and as chair of the House Agriculture Subcommittee on Conservation, Credit and Rural Development, he steadfastly supported programs that would strengthen cooperatives. Always interested in helping the 70-year-old cooperative Farm Credit System better serve farmers, he provided the leadership to develop legislation that rescued the System when the farm economy was in dire distress. He championed rural telephone and electric cooperatives, and was instrumental in the establishment of the Rural Telephone Bank. He also fought to preserve adequate funding for the entire Rural Electrification Administration program.

Fernand St Germain

Inducted:1981

Congressman Fernand J. St Germain was chairman of the House Committee on Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs that handles a wide range of issues related to consumers. During his tenure on this committee, he consistently championed consumer cooperatives. It was he who in 1978 introduced legislation to create the National Consumer Cooperative Bank. When federal administrative actions later threatened to end the bank, he led the fight to preserve it. He believed and often said that consumer cooperatives ‘are reaching people that simply have been bypassed by other more traditional programs.’

Andrew J. Volstead

Inducted:1979

Minnesota Representative Andrew Volstead was an earnest creator and supporter of the ‘farmer cooperative Magna Charta’, the Capper-Volstead Act. He was a student of cooperatives in this country and abroad, and believed that co-ops were appropriate instruments for the advance of small farmer welfare. His tenure in Congress covered years when the nation’s farmer marketing co-ops were still in their developing stages, and when there were repeated efforts to limit their effectiveness. The struggle to enact his legislation was intense, and its final success was credited in no small measure to his legislative effectiveness.

Hubert H. Humphrey

Inducted:1978

As a U.S. Senator and Vice President and a long-time issue-shaping political figure, Hubert Humphrey was a staunch and outspoken friend of cooperatives. He was a legislative ally of farm cooperatives and repeatedly defended the Capper-Volstead Act. He supported the development programs of electric and telephone cooperatives. He also gave his support to co-op interests in credit, housing and consumer goods, and was an early sponsor of legislation proposing establishment of the National Consumers Cooperative Bank. He drafted an amendment to the Foreign Assistance Act which helped cooperatives overseas.