Harold Royce Gross (June 30, 1899 – September 22, 1987) was a Republican United States Representative from Iowa's 3rd congressional district for thirteen terms. The role he played on the House floor, objecting to spending measures and projects that he considered wasteful, prompted Time magazine to label him "the useful pest." Personal background Gross was born on his parents' farm near Arispe, in Union County, Iowa. He was educated in the rural schools. In 1916, after completing his sophomore year in high school in Creston, Iowa, he concealed his youth in order to enlist in the military service, where he first served with the First Iowa Field Artillery in the Pancho Villa Expedition. During World War I he served in France with the United States Army from 1917–1919. After the war, he briefly attended Iowa State College in its electrical engineering program, before transferring to the University of Missouri School of Journalism in Columbia. He was a newspaper reporter and editor for various newspapers from 1921 to 1935. One such newspaper was the publication of the Iowa Farmer's Union, the Iowa Union Farmer, which he edited from 1929 to 1935. He began as a radio news commentator for WHO (AM) in Des Moines, Iowa in 1935. One of his fellow on-air broadcasters at WHO was a young Ronald Reagan. He met Hazel Webster while he was a newspaper reporter covering the Iowa statehouse and she was the secretary to the Iowa Attorney General. They were married in 1929. H. R. and Hazel Gross raised two children, Phillip and Alan. 1940 run for Governor of Iowa In 1940, Gross challenged Iowa's sitting Governor, George A. Wilson, in the Republican primary, running what newspapers called a "sight-unseen" campaign. Gross confined his campaign to radio addresses, declined all personal appearance invitations, and made no platform speeches. He lost the primary by only 15,781 votes out of over 330,000 cast, in the closest primary race in Iowa in nearly thirteen years. His campaign was haunted by a statement he had made seven years earlier, while writing and speaking for the Farmers' Holiday Association, that appeared to approve of an episode of mob violence against a judge to stop a foreclosure. Following his defeat, Gross joined an Ohio radio station and later moved to Indiana. After World War II, he returned to Iowa and became a radio newscaster at KXEL in Waterloo, Iowa. Congressional elections