Former two decade Congressman Don Manzullo
Former Congressman Donald A. Manzullo was honored for his twenty years of service to McHenry County at a reception at Crystal Lake’s d’Andrea’s Monday night.
Sixty-some people, including the two Congressman who replaced him, gathered to offer laudatory comments.
A who’s-who of elected local elected officials were in attendance.
McHenry County Clerk Kathie Schultz, Sheriff Keith Nygren, Auditor Pam Palmer, Coroner Anne Majewski, County Board Chairwoman Tina Hill, Woodstock Mayor Brian Sager and surely others whom I’m forgetting.
Randy Hultgren
Peter Roskam
Both Congressman Randy Hultgren and Congressman Peter Roskam thanked Manzullo for being their role model.
Although neither was there when the other spoke, their comments about how Manzullo had managed to balance family life, keeping his ideals and public service could have been interchangeable.
A third legislator, State Rep. Mike Tryon had a letter read which also pointed to the Egan Republican as a role model. (I’ll try to get a copy so I can share it with you. It really was quite insightful.)
The man Manzullo beat in the 1992 Republican Primary, former State Senator Jack Schaffer, mentioned that he watched Manzullo’s career closely and was not disappointed.
Former McHenry County Board Chairman Ken Koehler credited Manzullo with bringing $30 million in highway money to the area, including the Western Bypass in Algonquin, which he said would be finished next year.
Former McHenry County Board Chairman Ken Koehler presented former Congressman Don Manzullo a plaque after praising his efforts to provide money for roads and water resource mapping.
He told of how the Postal System was convinced to yield a slice of its parking lot. Manzullo was a good friend of the man who ran the Post Office and had him out for a hearing on closing a regional postal facility in Rockford. As Koehler related the story, Manzullo said that he would find a way to get the Post Office honcho to Algonquin to show him the problem.
County Board Chairwoman Tina Hill and the man she replaced, Ken Koehler, had a chat.
Roskam, coming late after a 5:30 event in Elk Grove Village, brought forth something Manzullo constituents probably had never heard.
He revealed that Don Manzullo’s nickname in the U.S. House was “Mad Dog.”
Manzullo took the podium after that revelation and explained that only two Members of Congress had nicknames.
“There was a Congressman nicknamed ‘Doc’–and he wasn’t even a physician–and me,” Manzullo explained.
It was because of the intensity with which Manzullo pursued the issues about which he cared, for example, manufacturing in America.