William Dyke

Who is William Dyke?

William D. Dyke is an American lawyer, judge, and politician. He was a two-term mayor of Madison, Wisconsin, from 1969 to 1973. A conservative Republican, he briefly left the party in 1976 to join Lester Maddox's American Independent Party presidential ticket as the vice presidential nominee; however, he disavowed Maddox's segregationist views. Maddox and Dyke won 170,274 votes in the general election.

Dyke's tenure as mayor of Madison is considered a colorful, albeit often controversial, part of Madison's history. Dyke presided over Madison during what is perhaps the most turbulent era in the city's history, highlighted by the Sterling Hall bombing and subsequent clashes with student uprisings. One of those student activists, Paul Soglin, unsuccessfully challenged Dyke in the 1971 mayoral elections, only to return and defeat Dyke's attempt for re-election in 1973. Undeterred, Dyke ran as the Republican nominee for governor in 1974, and joined Maddox's third-party presidential campaign two years later in 1976.

Dyke also illustrated the children's book The General's Hat, or Why the Bell Tower Stopped Working, a tale about two mice who get on the same ship with General Ulysses S.