At 91, Idaho Mayor Has Seniority System Down Pat

MCCALL, Idaho - Some men make mountains. Others make excuses.

John Allen makes a martini and watches the world go by.

"I haven't got any worries now," he says. "I've lived too long."

At 91, Allen is said to be the oldest mayor in the United States.

He holds the top office in McCall, a mountain town at the tip of central Idaho's Long Valley.

He meets with the city administrator, Bud Schmidt, at City Hall several times a week "so I know pretty much what's going on."

He signs the city's checks and raps the gavel at City Council meetings. He cajoles neighbors to serve on thankless committees. They rarely refuse.

And while Allen plays down his role, others insist he's the right man at the right time for McCall.

"I told him this is no time to retire just because you're 91," says Schmidt, 47. "He's seen how the circle comes around, that there's some projects you don't push, that they'll happen in their own time."

Former U.S. Sen. Jim McClure has a cabin in McCall. "Factions often pull in opposite directions, and John pulls them together," he says.

And Bill Jarocki, executive director of the Association of Idaho Cities, says McCall can lean on Allen's experience to guide it through the rapids of economic change.

"In a lifetime, you either witness events or participate in them," Jarocki says. "He's a participant. That's the difference between John Allen and the common man."

Allen, the son of a judge, graduated from the University of California in law and won his first political race at 23 - a 1922 school-board election in Oakland, Calif. After serving in the South Pacific during World War II, he was elected to Congress in 1946.

A fellow freshman Republican in the California delegation gave his photo to Allen. It's signed, "To the noblest statesman of them all - Dick Nixon."

Lawmakers of both parties praised his patient ways and ability to listen.

William Mailliard was a Republican representative from San Francisco from 1953 to 1974. He and Allen sat on the Merchant Marine and Fisheries Committee.

"He was always a low-key, easygoing guy," Maillard recalls. "The people you don't hear too much about are the ones who get things done, because everybody trusts them and likes them. It's when you get to be a star that you get enemies."

Allen lost his seat in 1958, but was quickly appointed undersecretary of commerce for transportation for the final two years of the Eisenhower administration.

Allen confounds expectations.

He is the last Republican to represent Oakland and Berkeley, home of the free-speech movement and the Black Panthers.

"He's always had exceptional tolerance for diversity and been open-minded," says daughter Sally Ann Hess of Riverside, Calif. "I know he's a conservative Republican and all, but he's always enjoyed learning about new ways to do things."

Allen and his first wife, Carol, had two daughters. When she died of a heart attack in 1957, he remarried a year later to Sally Clement, a watercolor painter 24 years younger. They had three more daughters.

After retiring from his Oakland law practice in 1969, he and his family moved to McCall, where he immediately was asked to join the senior citizens center. Allen, then 70, said, "You know, I have a first grader at home. I think I better wait."

When townspeople begged him to run for mayor four years ago, he relented and won by a 2-to-1 margin.

"We're not looking at him as just an old fossil," says Tom Grote, publisher of the Central Idaho Star-News, "but as a source of knowledge and expertise."

Allen's term is up at the end of the year, and some in town are anxious to see him run again. He has decided only one thing.

"Last time I stood for election," he says. "This time I'll probably sit."