Gov. George S. Mickelson of South Dakota and seven others were killed last week when the state plane in which they were traveling crashed near Dubuque, Iowa.
The 52-year-old Republican Governor, who was in his second term, was returning to the state capital in Pierre from a meeting in Cincinnati, said Janelle Toman, the Governor’s press secretary.
Lieut. Gov. Walter Dale Miller was to be sworn in as Governor last week, she said.
Susan M. Coughlin, the vice chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, said last week that the cause of the accident was not yet known.
In his first term, Mr. Mickelson successfully pushed for a $16.8 million piece of school-reform legislation that included pay raises for South Dakota’s teachers, then the most poorly paid in the nation. (See Education Week, March 7, 1990.)
In 1991, the Governor won legislative approval for the funding of eight pilot projects to test the revamping of K-12 education statewide, a plan that was later expanded. (See Education Week, March 13, 1991.)
