GREENSBORO — Bill Doyle, who died August 15, wasn’t just the longest-serving state senator in Vermont history: he represented Washington County in the upper chamber for 48 years. He was a mentor to many other office holders and to so many of the students to whom he taught poli-sci and history classes at Johnson State College (JSC) for 60 years.
Bill brought countless leaders into his classroom, and inspired dozens of his students to seek public office. More than 60 former students of his at JSC sought elected positions; at least 30 of them won legislative and other state offices.
My contact with him dates to the mid 1970s when his family bought a camp on Caspian Lake in Greensboro. At the time, I operated a small seasonal rubbish business that hauled trash, including the Doyle Family’s, for nine years.
Starting in 1974 and for the next 40 years, I taught high school courses at Hazen Union. In the mid-1980s, with Bill’s urging, I applied for and started teaching evenings as an adjunct instructor at Johnson State College, and continued as the school morphed into Northern Vermont University (now Vermont State University, Johnson campus). I taught evenings for 26 years at JSC in Bill’s humanities department.
Bill earned his Bachelors Degree in history at Princeton and then his Masters and Doctorate Degrees in education at Columbia.
In 1969 Governor Davis proposed a state sales tax, and Professor-Senator Doyle developed a questionnaire to survey public opinion in the state. He expanded what came to be called the “Doyle Poll” in future years, enlisting students to help tabulate and analyze the results. I remember helping to gather returns from town meetings in the 1980s and 1990s, giving legislators a greater sense for the concerns of their constituents.
For several years, Bill taught a comparative government class at JSC which involved classes in Vermont as well as time in the Canadian capital of Ottawa, observing the Canadian Parliament. He took advantage of knowing Allison Hardy, a member of the Canadian diplomatic corps, who owned a lake house in Greensboro. Ms. Hardy helped educate Bill’s students about how the Canadian Parliamentary system is different from America’s presidential system and provided insights into the long, positive relationship between our two countries.
Bill coached Little League baseball teams and then the Montpelier High School tennis team for several years. He was a founding member of the Vermont Mountaineers baseball team board of directors in the capital city.
Bill and his wife Olene were active in Greensboro, playing golf and tennis at the Mountain View Country Club. They also played bridge with neighbors in the Kingdom.
A week ago, Governor Phil Scott released a statement, saying of Bill Doyle, “I remember when I was first running for the senate, he was absolutely everywhere. I couldn’t believe the number of events he went to each and every day from dawn to well into the night.”
As a colleague in the state senate, I too remember learning from Bill about events that it could make sense to attend to expand understanding of both state government and regional politics.
If you visited the State’s capital city last week, you may have noticed flags at half staff to honor Bill Doyle’s memory and his decades of public service to the community, to Washington County and to the State of Vermont. His was, indeed, a well-lived life of public service!
Mike Metcalf
