Nation’s longest-serving agriculture chief dies

Gus Douglass, 88,  who died March 19 after a fall at his home in Mason County, was the nation's longest-serving state agriculture chief.

Douglass was elected as West Virginia's agriculture commissioner 11 times. He served six terms between 1965 and 1989, and five more between 1993 and 2013. He was out of the commissioner's office for four years after he ran an unsuccessful campaign for governor in 1988. 

Gus Douglass

He did not seek re-election in 2012, joking, "I'm afraid I might have worn the voters out."

Douglass, who was a farmer, testified repeatedly before Congress on farming issues. He also chaired the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture's Advisory Committee on Foreign Animal and Poultry Diseases four times.

The Democrat also was the only West Virginian ever elected national president of the Future Farmers of America. He presided over the first FFA conference following World War II.

Douglass also had served as president of the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture and the Southern Association of State Departments of Agriculture. He was chairman of the Southern Regional Committee for Food and Agriculture under President Jimmy Carter.