Baxter Ward

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Baxter Ward bigraphy, stories - American politician

Baxter Ward : biography

November 5, 1919 – February 4, 2002

Baxter Ward (November 5, 1919 – February 4, 2002) was a television news anchor who served two terms on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. Prior to his election on the board, he ran third in an unsuccessful bid to unseat Sam Yorty for Mayor of Los Angeles in 1969.

In 1974, Ward launched the nation’s first county-owned commuter train between San Diego and Los Angeles. Proposition 13 killed the project that critics branded "Baxter’s choo choo". But the legal work done on its behalf paved the way for the eventual Metrolink system.

He was born Baxter Ward Schwellenbach in Superior, Wisconsin, and grew up in Ephrata, Washington. He was the nephew of Lewis Baxter Schwellenbach.

During the 1950s he was on a short-lived non-fiction television show called Adventure Tomorrow with Dr. Martin L. Klein, which presented technology, primarily aerospace.

Ward was as a television news anchor first at KCOP-Channel 13 and then with KABC-Channel 7 in Los Angeles before he ran for Mayor.