About Rudy Perpich
Rudolph George Perpich Sr. (born Rudolph George Prpić; June 27, 1928 – September 21, 1995) was an American politician who served as the 34th and 36th governor of Minnesota from 1976 to 1979 and from 1983 to 1991. He was a member of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party. To date, he is the only governor elected to serve non-consecutive terms in the history of Minnesota. Perpich was born to Croatian American parents in Carson Lake, Minnesota, and graduated from Hibbing High School in 1946. He served in the United States Army for two years before attending Marquette University in Milwaukee as an undergraduate and then a dental student. He graduated in 1954 and returned to Hibbing to practice dentistry. Perpich was elected a state senator in St. Louis County in 1962. He served there until 1970, when he was elected lieutenant governor under Governor Wendell R. Anderson. He was reelected in 1974. In 1976, Perpich was appointed governor of Minnesota after Anderson resigned to fill a seat in the U.S. Senate. In the 1978 gubernatorial election, dubbed the "Minnesota Massacre", Perpich lost reelection. He then traveled to Vienna, Austria, to work for supercomputer company Control Data Corporation. Perpich returned to Minnesota in 1982 to run for governor against the DFL-endorsed candidate Warren Spannaus. Perpich won the election and served until 1991. As governor, Perpich sought to strengthen Minnesota's international trade opportunities, job markets, and corporations. He nominated the first women justices to the Minnesota Supreme Court and Minnesota Court of Appeals and relied on local support through canvassing. Perpich backed multiple Minnesota institutions as governor, including the Mall of America, Natural Resources Research Institute, Wells Fargo Place, the Center for Victims of Torture, and the Perpich Center for Arts Education. He was criticized for using the Minnesota National Guard to protect Hormel Foods during the 1985–1986 Hormel strike, but refused to send the force to Nicaragua to train with the Contra rebels. Perpich did not learn to speak English until at least the first grade of elementary school. Perpich first entered politics by serving on the Hibbing school board in 1955–1956. Perpich was the first Iron Range resident to hold the office. In 1982, he challenged the DFL Party's endorsed candidate for governor, Warren Spannaus, in the primary election, and won.
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