Robert Ray Five Time Iowa Governor

Robert D. Ray was born in Des Moines in 1928. After graduating from Roosevelt High in 1946, he joined the army and served in occupied Japan with the military police.

When he came home, he went to Drake on the G.I. Bill, earned his law degree, and married his college sweetheart, Billie Lou Joyce. They settled in Des Moines, where Ray built a small law practice and a reputation for honesty and staying calm under pressure.

Politics followed. He became chairperson of the Iowa Republican Party in 1963, modernized it, raised money, and recruited new candidates, earning respect from both moderates and conservatives. Reporters called him “unflappable” and “impossible to dislike.”

America was a mess in 1968—Vietnam, protests, assassinations. Iowa Republicans needed someone calm. They picked Robert Ray. He won. Then he won again. And again. Five times. Fourteen years as governor.

People called him “the conscience of Iowa.” Others called him dull. He didn’t care. He governed like a man tuning an engine—carefully, quietly, and with purpose.

Then he did something that took real guts.

In 1975, as the Vietnam War ended, the world saw images of refugee families stranded at sea, and starving in camps. Most politicians looked away. Ray didn’t. “If we can help, we should,” he said. Simple as that.

He told Washington, Iowa would take them—Vietnamese, Cambodians, Lao, Tai Dam. Thousands. “We measure character by how we treat those in need,” he told reporters.

The backlash came fast. “We’ve got Iowans out of work,” one man wrote. “Why bring in foreigners?” Ray mailed him back: “They’re human beings. You’ll like them once you meet them.”

He was right. Churches opened doors. Schools made room. Refugee families became neighbors. It wasn’t easy, but it worked.

When the Tai Dam asked to resettle together, federal officials said no. Ray said yes. “If we can bring them as a community, we will,” he said. A Washington bureaucrat told him it couldn’t be done. Ray replied, “It can in Iowa.”

TIME magazine called him “The Governor with a Heart.” Others said he’d gone soft in the head. “He’s a great governor—if you like social work,” one critic sneered. Ray shrugged. “I didn’t do it for politics. I did it because it was right.”

He stayed that way. When politics drifted toward extremes, he warned, “The edges will wreck this country.”

In 1979, when Vietnamese “boat people” were dying at sea, he launched Iowa SHARES—a grassroots drive for food and medicine. “We can’t save everyone,” he said, “but that’s no reason to save no one.”

Money poured in. Churches passed plates. Schoolkids collected coins. Iowa helped people it had never met.

Ray could be stubborn, cautious, and too quiet. Reporters called him bland. One joked he could “put a tornado to sleep.” Behind closed doors, staffers said. “He could cut you down with one look.”

Still, it worked. He ran Iowa clean and fair. “He was too decent for politics,” one rival admitted. “You can’t fight a guy like that.”

When he left office in 1983, approval ratings were sky high. He could’ve stayed forever. Instead, he walked away. “Time for new ideas,” he said.

He ran Blue Cross, led Drake University, and stayed active in civic life. When asked if he missed politics, he said, “I never thought I was in it.”

The refugees he welcomed built lives in Iowa, opened restaurants, raised families, and sent kids to college. “Without Governor Ray,” one Vietnamese Iowan said, “I wouldn’t have a life in America.”

When Ray died in 2018 at 89, the tributes poured in. “A man of quiet courage,” said Chuck Grassley. “The moral north star of Iowa,” said Tom Vilsack.

A few cynics grumbled he was “too nice.” Maybe. Or maybe just Iowa crazy.