Former Indiana Governor Joe Kernan, a Vietnam prisoner of war who entered politics and was pushed to the top state office when his predecessor suffered a fatal stroke, died Wednesday at age 74.
Kernan died at a South Bend health center, said Mary Downes, who was the chief of staff in the governor’s office. Kernan was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease several years ago, but his family kept his condition private until he revealed earlier this month that he had lost the ability to speak and was living in a care facility.
Kernan, a Democrat, won three elections as Mayor of South Bend before being elected Lieutenant Governor with Governor Frank O’Bannon in 1996 and 2000. Kernan became Governor in September 2003 after O’Bannon’s death and served for 16 months before losing the 2004 election to Republican Mitch Daniels.
“Distinguished is not a word strong enough to describe it,” current Governor Eric Holcomb said in a statement. “Regardless of personal cost, Joe Kernan dedicated every ounce of his life, over and over, to keeping the oath he took and to serving the country and the state he loved.”
Kernan, a gregarious activist who was a catcher for the University of Notre Dame baseball team, was widely praised for the smooth transition after the first death of an Indiana governor since 1891.
FILE – In this Tuesday, Nov. 2, 2004 file photo, Indiana Gov. Joe Kernan acknowledges supporters’ applause for recognizing Republican challenger Mitch Daniels in the run for governor in Indianapolis. Kernan died at 74 years old. The chief of staff in his governor’s office says Kernan died early Wednesday, July 29, 2020 at a South Bend health facility. (AP Photo / Michael Conroy, File)
“This was uncharted territory,” Republican Senator James Merritt told Kernan during a ceremony a few days before leaving office in early 2005. “This was his legacy: calming down the leadership in a crisis.”
Kernan enlisted in the Navy after his graduation from Notre Dame in 1968 and flew as a navigator on combat missions in Laos and North Vietnam. His reconnaissance plane was shot down during a mission in North Vietnam on May 7, 1972. He expelled and was captured, beginning a tough 11-month trial as a prisoner of war that ended when he left Hanoi on March 27, 1973.
The worst day of captivity came early, he said, when he spoke to another prisoner of war.
“He told me that our escort had lost us and that we were supposed to be dead,” Kernan said in an interview in 2002. “My family thought he was dead, and if the Navy thought he was dead, what goes through your mind is that there’s no reason for these guys to keep me alive. “
For decades, Kernan scored every May 7 playing golf, eating pizza and drinking beer. He said he remembered the date of his capture each year “without question,” but sometimes he did not remember the anniversary of his release until a day or a week later.
“I think it is because if there had not been a May 7, there would never have been a March 27,” Kernan said. “It was the day my life changed.”
Kernan’s actions as governor included electing former state budget director Kathy Davis to replace him as lieutenant governor, making her the first woman to serve as governor or lieutenant governor of Indiana.
He also became the first Indiana Governor in 48 years to save the life of a death row inmate when he stopped an execution just days before it occurred in 2004. Kernan said he decided it would be unfair to execute Darnell Williams by 1986. Murders of a Gary couple when a mentally handicapped accomplice received a life sentence. Williams’ sentence was commuted to life in prison without parole.
Kernan had decided not to run for governor in 2004 the year before O’Bannon’s death. He changed his mind two months after taking over the state’s main office, declaring “I don’t want to see this from the sidelines.”
Republicans attacked Kernan over the state government budget deficit and tens of thousands of job losses, and Democrats attributed the problems to the 2001 national recession after the dotcom crash. Kernan lost what was then Indiana’s most expensive government campaign to Daniels, who had been President George W. Bush’s federal budget director and is now president of Purdue University.
