text: John W. Byrnes - Offline Wikipedia
  - updated 2020/09/05 10:27
  Byrnes was elected in 1944 as a Republican to the 79th Congress from Wisconsin's 8th district. He defeated one-term incumbent LaVern Dilweg, a notable former professional football player with the Green Bay Packers. Byrnes was reelected to the thirteen succeeding Congresses, and served 28 years from January 1945 to January 1973, making him the 8th district's longest serving representative. In 1964, the Wisconsin delegates to the 1964 Republican National Convention were pledged to support Byrnes, but he released the delegates to support the candidates they individually chose.[5] He did not seek a fifteenth term in 1972 to the 93rd Congress.
  After Congress, stayed in Washington to practice law and continued to reside in Arlington, Virginia. While traveling to Wisconsin for a medical check-up at the Marshfield Clinic, he suffered a stroke at the Central Wisconsin Airport in Mosinee[6] and died several days later in Marshfield on January 12, 1985.[3][7] He was buried in Green Bay at Allouez Catholic Cemetery.