Early Life
Ryan grew up in Kankakee County, Illinois. After serving in the U.S. Army in Korea, he worked for his father's two drugstores. He attended Ferris State College of Pharmacy (now Ferris State University) in Big Rapids, Michigan. Eventually, he built his father's pair of pharmacies into a successful family-run chain (profiting from lucrative government-contract business selling prescription drugs to nursing homes) which was sold in 1990.
Ryan was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1954. He served a 13 month tour in Korea, working in a base pharmacy.
On June 10, 1956, Ryan married his high school sweetheart, the former Lura Lynn Lowe (July 5, 1934 – June 27, 2011). They have five daughters (including a set of triplets); Julie, Joanne, Jeanette, Lynda and Nancy; and one son, "Homer" (George Homer Ryan, Jr.)
Lura Lowe met George Ryan in a high school English class. She was reared in the Kankakee County village of Aroma Park, where her family, originally from Germany, had lived since 1834. Her father owned one of the first hybrid seed companies in the United States. She died of cancer at Riverside Hospital in Kankakee on June 27, 2011.
Ryan's brother Tom has also been a significant political figure in Kankakee County. In addition, Ryan's sister Kathleen Dean's former son-in-law, Bruce Clark, is the Kankakee County Clerk.
Ryan began his political career by serving on the Kankakee County Board from 1968 to 1973 (his brother Tom J. Ryan was Mayor of Kankakee for 20 years from 1965–1985). He was then elected to the Illinois House of Representatives, where he served from 1973 to 1983, including two terms as Minority Leader and one term as Speaker. He then spent 20 years in statewide office, as Lieutenant Governor under Governor James R. Thompson (1983–1991), Secretary of State from 1991 to 1999, and as Governor from 1999 to 2003. During his first term as Secretary of State, the State Treasurer (and current Governor of Illinois) Pat Quinn was publicly critical of Ryan. Specifically, he drew attention to special vanity license plates that Ryan's office provided for clout-heavy motorists. This rivalry led Quinn to challenge Ryan in the 1994 general election for Secretary of State, unsuccessfully.
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Famous quotes related to early life:
“... goodness is of a modest nature, easily discouraged, and when much elbowed in early life by unabashed vices, is apt to retire into extreme privacy, so that it is more easily believed in by those who construct a selfish old gentleman theoretically, than by those who form the narrower judgments based on his personal acquaintance.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)