A. Vernon Conrad remembered as a low-key fighter for ‘the little guy’

As a three-term Fresno County supervisor, A. Vernon Conrad is remembered as an advocate for the small farmer affected by air-quality rules as well as welfare recipients trying to re-enter the workforce without going broke.

Mr. Conrad, himself a lifelong farmer, died Dec. 10 from natural causes on the family farm in Reedley, which also was his birthplace on March 24, 1926. He was 90.

In 1943, he was Reedley High School’s student body president before serving in the U.S. Army in the Philippines during World War II and in Japan during the post-war occupation. He married Marjorie June Clark in 1945; they were married 71 years.

After serving in the Army, Mr. Conrad returned home to farm with his father, William Arthur Conrad, raising watermelons, raisin grapes, alfalfa, citrus and stone fruit.

Mr. Conrad was on the Great Western School District board before serving on the first school board of the Kings Canyon Unified School District. He also served as a board member for the Alta Irrigation District, Kings River Conservation District and the Big Fresno Fair. And, he served two years as Fresno County Farm Bureau president.

From 1982 to 1994, Mr. Conrad was a member of the Fresno County Board of Supervisors from District 4 and widely was considered the “go-to guy” on water issues, said Doug Vagim, a former board colleague who served from 1988 to 1996.

Mr. Conrad was instrumental in bringing “workfare” to Fresno County, which allowed people to work as they got government benefits on a sliding scale, Vagim said.

Many families would lose money if they worked rather than collecting benefits and Vagim said Mr. Conrad helped to get the federal rules changed to allow benefit recipients also to work.

He was involved in working on air-quality issues at a time when the county was in charge of overseeing air quality. Mr. Conrad recognized that air quality was a problem, Vagim said, but he always was conscious of the financial impacts that new rules were having on small farmers and residents.

“Vern had to convince his farmers that their systems had to have conversions,” he said. “He understood that the little guy who has a problem can’t be bowled over. Vern was always concerned for the little guy.”

But when it came to making difficult votes, Mr. Conrad could be misjudged because he didn’t waver, Vagim said.

“I considered him to be a very kind, gentle guy that sometimes people could misread, especially if he had to vote a certain way because a law read that way,” he said. “He was stoic and he never laid his emotions on his sleeve on votes he didn’t want to make. That’s what made him a rock.”

Retired Supervisor Phil Larson said Mr. Conrad was the first supervisor elected who also had served as Farm Bureau president; Larson was the second. They saw each other at regular “over-the-hill gang” lunches for former Farm Bureau presidents.

“He had ag at heart,” said Larson, who served as a county supervisor from 2002 to 2014. “He was very conservative, but fair, in his judgment.”

Judy Case McNairy, who held the District 4 seat from 1996 until 2014, still saw Mr. Conrad occasionally. Most recently, she said, she saw him at a Reedley Chamber of Commerce event.

“After Vern was out of office, he continued to attend events across the district,” she said. “He was so engaged in the community and when he came in, everybody was always happy to see him.”

When she sought his advice, Case McNairy said, she always felt Mr. Conrad’s response was sincere.

“Anything he would have said to me would have been trustworthy,” she said. “He was one of those people you knew had his heart in the right place and was doing things for the right reasons.”

District 4 Supervisor Buddy Mendes knew Mr. Conrad since the early 1980s and became friends through his father-in-law, Dean Jensen.

“He was my first exposure to a county supervisor,” Mendes said. “He was very straightforward; he would tell it like it is, and I always admired that.”

Mr. Conrad didn’t offer advice on issues, Mendes said.

“He’d say ‘Here’s what I did, but you go figure it out,’ ” Mendes said.

Mr. Conrad’s son, William Conrad, said his father was a godly man who gave his life to Jesus Christ as a teenager and attended the Reedley Church of the Brethren until his death. In the church, he served as deacon and Sunday School teacher.

His life will be remembered in a memorial service on Jan. 14 at the First Baptist Church in Dinuba.

This story was originally published December 16, 2016 at 12:37 PM with the headline "A. Vernon Conrad remembered as a low-key fighter for ‘the little guy’."