John Grenier John Edward Grenier ( August 24 , 1930 – November 6 , 2007 ) was a Birmingham attorney and a pioneer in the development of the modern Republican Party in the U . S . state of Alabama . Grenier was a former litigator for Lange Simpson Robinson & Somerville , one of the oldest and most distinguished law firms in Birmingham . He was Alabama state Republican party chairman from 1962 to 1965 . He then launched an unsuccessful campaign in 1966 for the United States Senate . He was thereafter active in 1986 in the election of Guy Hunt as the state ' s first Republican governor of the 20th century . Early years , education , military . Grenier ( pronounced Grain YEY ) was born in New Orleans , the youngest of three children of Charles Desire Grenier , Sr . , a banker , and the former Beatrice Schaumburg ( 1893 – 1971 ) . Grenier graduated from Jesuit High School in New Orleans and lettered in track , football and baseball . In 1953 , Grenier received his undergraduate and law degrees , having completed a five - year program at Tulane University . Then he served as a United States Marine Corps pilot in South Korea after the Korean War , having attained the rank of captain . He flew more than one hundred patrols with VMF - 312 , the " Checkerboard Squadron " . After Tulane , Grenier married the former Lynne Youmans ( born 1932 ) ; they moved to Birmingham , the seat of Jefferson County , Alabama ' s most populous county . They had one son , John Beaulieu " Beau " Grenier , Sr . ( born 1956 ) , a Birmingham attorney married to Joy Houston Grenier ( born 1975 ) . John and Lynne Grenier were divorced in 1983 ; in 1991 , Grenier married the former Stella Kontos ( born 1950 ) . In addition to his wife and son , Grenier was survived by four grandchildren by his son and Celeste Crowe Grenier ( born 1958 ) : John Beaulieu Grenier , Jr . ( born 1986 ) , Dorothy Monnish Grenier ( born 1989 ) , Evans Barlow Grenier ( born 1991 ) and Carolyn Youmans Grenier ( born 1994 ) of Birmingham , and a sister , Rosemary Grenier Rivet of San Diego , California . After his military service , Grenier enrolled at New York University in New York City , where he received an LL . M . degree in taxation . He practiced law briefly on Wall Street before he and Lynne relocated to Birmingham so that he could join the staff of the Southern Natural Gas Company . He subsequently joined the law firm Bradley Arant Rose & White , where he became a partner and practiced corporate and tax law under the tutelage and mentorship of Lee C . Bradley , Jr . He then joined the firm formerly known as Lange , Simpson , Robinson & Somerville and was a partner there for some thirty - five years before his retirement in 2004 . Campaigning for Nixon and Goldwater . In 1960 , Grenier arranged a successful rally in Birmingham on behalf of GOP presidential nominee , then Richard M . Nixon . In the general election , however , Alabama split its electoral votes between Democratic U . S . Senator John F . Kennedy and an unpledged segregationist slate that supported Democratic U . S . Senator Harry F . Byrd , Sr . , of Virginia . In 1961 , Grenier was named chairman of the Young Republicans of Alabama and thereafter was promoted to state party chairman . Employing the Southern Strategy in 1964 , Grenier worked to secure the presidential nomination for then Senator Barry M . Goldwater of Arizona , who upset the party ' s " Eastern Establishment " , which had dominated the selection process for decades . Grenier secured the support of 271 of the 279 southern delegates to support Goldwater at the national party conclave held in San Francisco . One of the dissenters was Winthrop Rockefeller , future governor of Arkansas , who was committed to his brother , then Governor Nelson A . Rockefeller of New York . Goldwater ' s national campaign manager was the Phoenix attorney Denison Kitchel , a friend of the nominee for nearly three decades . Depicted as " bright , tough - minded , and a superb organizer " , Grenier then became the executive director of the Republican National Committee , second to then party chairman Dean Burch , also of Arizona . That appointment ended in 1965 , when incoming chairman Ray C . Bliss of Ohio assembled a new team at the RNC . In Alabama , state chairman Grenier recruited a slate of candidates for the United States House of Representatives to challenge Democrats who in the past had usually been unopposed in the general election . Five of those candidates were elected . Two of the captured seats — in Mobile and Montgomery — have remained in Republican hands since the 1964 election . A third district , based about Birmingham , was Republican held until 1983 . Two other districts reverted to the Democrats in the 1966 mid - term elections but were reclaimed by Republicans in the 21st century . The 1966 campaign . Grenier himself planned to run for governor in 1966 , but he instead deferred to U . S . Representative James D . Martin of Gadsden , who became the unopposed Republican Party candidate . Grenier , meanwhile , challenged U . S . Senator John Sparkman . He received 313 , 018 votes ( 39 percent ) to Sparkman ' s 482 , 138 ( 60 . 1 percent ) . Another 7 , 444 votes ( 0 . 9 percent ) went to Julian Elgin , an independent from Montgomery who had been Sparkman ' s Republican opponent in 1960 . Sparkman was an entrenched incumbent senator and a former member of the U . S . House as well , who had also been the running - mate of Adlai Stevenson of Illinois in 1952 . Grenier ran ahead of his ticket - mate Martin , who was crushed in the gubernatorial race by Lurleen Wallace , wife of popular outgoing Democratic Governor George C . Wallace . Martin finished with 262 , 943 votes ( 31 percent ) ; Mrs . Wallace ' s 537 , 505 ( 63 . 4 percent ) , and the remaining 47 , 655 ( 5 . 6 percent ) went to independent Dr . Carl Ray Robinson ( 1925 – 2005 ) , a Bessemer physician . Martin and Grenier each won only one of the state ' s sixty - seven counties — Winston in north Alabama , whose descendants were mostly non - slaveholder s who had been Republican at the time of the American Civil War . Grenier hence ran eight percentage points ahead of Martin because he received 50 , 075 more votes than Martin , and 45 , 503 fewer ballots were cast for senator than for governor . The sole voter group with whom Martin and Grenier prevailed was upper - income whites . For a time during the first half of 1966 , Senator Sparkman had seemed vulnerable . He won the Democratic nomination by an unimpressive margin over weak opponents . Some 224 , 000 voters who participated in the gubernatorial primary , handily won by Lurleen Wallace , skipped the Senate race . Grenier concluded that such apparent lukewarmedness toward Sparkman provided a base from which to mount a challenge . Yet Sparkman benefited from Lurleen Wallace ' s candidacy , for he could extol the popular portions of his record and still stress that he had opposed U . S . President Lyndon B . Johnson on nearly half of Senate roll call votes . Philosophical differences between the Wallaces and Sparkman were hence blurred in the interest of party harmony . Sparkman successfully emphasized the value to Alabamians of his constituent services , his chairmanship of the Senate Banking Committee and his key membership on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee . Grenier tried to tie Sparkman to President Johnson , having called his opponent " the ambassador to Alabama from the court of King Lyndon . " He challenged the Democrats over the economy , constitutional interpretation , the Great Society , civil disobedience , and urban unrest . Grenier proposed military victory in the Vietnam War , the restoration of voluntary school prayer , and restrictions on foreign aid programs . The split with James Martin . Jim Martin and John Grenier initially planned a Goldwater - style campaign , but when polls showed certain victory for Lurleen Wallace , Grenier tried to steer independently of Martin . He spoke warmly of the Wallaces and told conservative Democrats : " there are deep differences between John Sparkman and George Wallace . " Sparkman ' s hometown daily , " The Huntsville Times " , questioned Grenier ' s attempt to attach himself to the Wallace coattails " even while Grenier affirmed backing for Martin for governor . Grenier ' s attempt to court Wallace voters drew the private outrage of Martin . The liberal Republican Ripon Society termed the Grenier campaign " an echo of Democratic racism . " The tensions between Martin and Grenier accelerated . When Martin leaders asked to switch races again with Grenier , the Senate nominee flatly refused . Perry O . Hooper , Sr . , a former probate and circuit judge from Montgomery and later the first Republican elected to the Alabama Supreme Court , reflected on the Martin - Grenier rivalry , having noted that Martin defeated Grenier in 1968 in a race for Republican national committeeman , a position that Hooper himself subsequently held : The year 1966 was a disaster . . . nobody could imagine a governor ' s wife running for office and winning . I began to realize it in January , but nobody else seemed to understand . Once we made that mistake , it was all downhill [ for Republicans ] . It was felt that if we were going to really build a party we needed a governor , and Jim Martin was a hot item . He wanted to switch over to the senatorial nomination , but he wouldn ' t take a leadership position and let it be known . . . He hoped the convention would take over , but John Grenier was too well organized to make the switch . Neither Martin nor Grenier has ever gotten over the 1966 races . Martin ran against Grenier to serve on the national committee in 1968 and blew him away . Hopefully , a lot of these things are in the past . All we can do is learn from 1966 . Journalist Ray Jenkins of the " Montgomery Advertiser " recalled Martin as having been : in the vanguard of what promised to be a period of profound political change . Then something dreadful happened to the Republicans on the way to 1966 . They picked a fight with George Wallace . The bubble burst and once again the Republicans were relegated to their humble status as a mere facade of patronage . . . Martin came out of political isolation [ in 1978 ] to spread the faith yet once again , even though the odds were clearly against him . . . When told by friends he should become a Democrat , Martin said " If ever there is to be a healthy two - party system in Alabama , someone must keep the faith , someone must keep principle above self interest . " . . . Perry Hooper , however , disputes Jenkins ' analysis . Hooper said that George Wallace may have inadvertently aided the Republican Party by fostering opposition to the national Democrats within Alabama . Hooper said that he had , despite their partisan difference , " always gotten along quite well " with Wallace , whom he remembers as " a southern gentleman who likes people , and it shows . " To Hooper , the difficulty of establishing the two - party system came from within the Republican Party itself . Jim Martin , he said , was the party ' s " finest candidate " but " time just slipped by , and it ' s difficult to overcome problems like we had in 1966 . " Working for Governor Hunt . It was a full twenty years after the 1966 elections before Alabama Republicans won their state ' s governorship . In 1986 , Grenier served as campaign manager for Guy Hunt in Hunt ' s successful bid for governor . Hunt benefited from division within the Democratic Party in 1986 between Lieutenant Governor Bill Baxley and the more conservative candidate , Attorney General Charles Graddick . Hunt defeated Baxley , just as Grenier had predicted that he would in what was seen outside Alabama as a stunning upset . Grenier then served in the Hunt administration as Chief of Staff and managed Hunt ' s successful bid for reelection in 1990 . Martin also served in the Hunt administration . Controversies plagued Hunt , however , and he was removed from the governorship in 1993 following his felony conviction on an ethics offense before he could complete his second term . Death and legacy . Grenier ' s son , Beau , states that his father had a zest for living : avid tennis player , snow skier , and fox hunter . He was self - taught in French , German , Spanish , and modern Greek . Grenier died after a brief illness of lung cancer in The University of Texas M . D . Anderson Cancer Center in Houston . Services were held on November 9 , 2007 , at St . Mary ' s On - the - Highlands Episcopal Church in Birmingham . He was interred at Elmwood Cemetery .