Gale William McGee (March 17, 1915April 9, 1992) was a United States Senator of the Democratic Party, and United States Ambassador to the Organization of American States (OAS). He represented Wyoming in the United States Senate from 1959 until 1977. To date, he remains the last Democrat to have represented Wyoming in the U.S. Senate. Early life McGee was born in Lincoln, Nebraska, on March 17, 1915. He attended public schools, and had planned to study law in college, but was forced by the Great Depression to attend the State Teachers College in Wayne, Nebraska, instead. He graduated from the Teachers College in 1936, and worked as a high school teacher while studying for a master's degree in history at the University of Colorado. He continued as a college instructor at Nebraska Wesleyan University, Iowa State College, and Notre Dame. In 1946, McGee received his Ph.D. in history from the University of Chicago. University of Wyoming Shortly after he received his Ph.D., McGee accepted a position as a professor of American history at the University of Wyoming. Soon after, he founded and served as chair of the University's Institute of International Affairs, which brought national dignitaries every summer through a Carnegie Foundation grant. Twenty-one teachers from Wyoming high schools were selected each summer to participate. For the next 12 years, the Institute brought international foreign policy thinkers such as Eleanor Roosevelt, Hans Morgenthau, and Henry Kissinger. In 1952, McGee took a one-year leave of absence from the University of Wyoming to serve as a Carnegie Research Fellow in New York with the Council on Foreign Relations, where he was assigned to research the mysteries of Soviet intentions. In 1956, because of the connections he made during his Carnegie fellowship, McGee led a group of teachers on a trip to the Soviet Union; it was the first trip of its kind. Political career 1958 election Active in Democratic Party politics, McGee was asked to run for the United States Congress in 1950, but declined, saying he wanted to get more in touch with Wyoming and its people. In 1955–56 he took a leave of absence from the university to work as top aide to Wyoming Democratic Senator Joseph C. O'Mahoney. In 1958 McGee left the university to make his bid for the U.S. Senate, challenging incumbent Frank A. Barrett. He ran on a program of youth and new ideas. The race