Thomas William Ludlow "Lud" Ashley (January 11, 1923 – June 15, 2010) was an American businessman and politician of the Democratic Party. He served as a U.S. representative from Ohio from 1955 to 1981. Early life and education Ashley was born on January 11, 1923, in Toledo, Ohio, and raised on the Old West End. He was the son of Mary Alida Gouverneur (née Ludlow) Ashley and William Meredith Ashley, who owned a small steel manufacturing firm. His older brother William was killed in May 1944, at age 22, when his Army bomber exploded during a training mission over Massachusetts. Ashley attended Maumee Valley Country Day School and graduated from the Kent School in Connecticut in 1942. During World War II, he served in the United States Army as a corporal in the Pacific Theater of Operations. After the war, Ashley attended Yale University, where he graduated in 1948. At Yale, he was a member of the secret society Skull and Bones along with future U.S. President George H. W. Bush. After graduating from Yale, Ashley worked with the Toledo Publicity and Efficiency Commission. Encouraged by Michael DiSalle, then mayor of Toledo and later governor of Ohio, he began studying law through night classes at the University of Toledo College of Law. He graduated from Ohio State University College of Law in 1951. He was admitted to the bar that year and began practicing law. Career Ashley joined the staff of Radio Free Europe (RFE) in 1952. He served in Europe for RFE as the co-director of the press section and later the assistant director of special projects. He resigned from RFE on March 1, 1954, to run for Congress. U.S. Congress Ashley was elected to Congress in 1954, beating the incumbent Frazier Reams, an independent, by 4,000 votes in a three-way race. He served 13 terms in Congress and was chairman of the Select Committee on Energy (Ad Hoc) from 1977 to 1979 and of the United States House Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries from 1979 to 1981. In 1961, Ashley was one of six congressmen who voted to withdraw funding for the House Un-American Activities Committee. He helped pass the 1964 Civil Rights Act and was a proponent of anti-poverty and housing legislation. In 1980, Ashley lost in an upset to Republican challenger Ed Weber. Later career Ashley was a member of the George H.W. Bush Presidential