primary. He defeated prohibition candidate Ed Woellhof by 1983 votes to enter the Republican Party's 1954 primary. The incumbent of the first district was Democrat Howard Miller who had defeated incumbent Albert Cole. Cole had gotten some signs crossed with Avery in regards to the Milford Reservoir. "In the Blue Valley and Republican Valley action, he's opposed to Tuttle Creek and he's opposed to Milford, and that made him pretty solid in this area. Then after the 1942 flood that came along, why there was a lot of damage downstream, and that revived the downstream support for the reservoirs. I knew Albert and I didn't interrogate him very seriously on this, but he gave me the impression he voted against putting this money in for Milford and Tuttle Creek. But he didn't get up and oppose it." This meant there would be a new representative from the First Congressional District of Kansas. For that man to be William Avery, he had to win the primary. Avery's biggest competition in the primary was Doral Hawks, a Republican who had a strong hold on Topeka. The First Congressional District of Kansas consists of 13 counties which also encompass Shawnee Country; which is the county Topeka is located in. After the floods of 1935 and 1942 caused much damage to the city of Topeka, many citizens wanted the reservoirs built to help protect the city. Hawks was running under the platform of creating the reservoirs – an issue that seemed to impact the voting significantly. "The Republican Party's 1954 primary, a five-way contest for what was then the Kansas First Congressional District, was quite close. Avery won a plurality with 40 percent of the votes cast (22,077), and Hawks came in second, receiving almost 37 percent (19,952)." Now, William Avery was up against the incumbent. Howard Miller had been receiving much credit for accomplishments that he had not actually achieved. "These Blue Valley Belles got a lot of publicity by campaigning for Howard Miller, saying he stopped Tuttle Creek. He didn't, Dwight Eisenhower took it out of the budget, that's what stopped it. He got the credit and was there and opposed it and Albert lost it." It did not matter; Avery defeated Miller and became the Representative to the First Congressional District of Kansas in 1955. Many of the Republican members in the United States House of Representatives were inexperienced, which allowed