Revered Maryland veteran legislator Pete Callas fondly remembered by colleagues

Peter "Pete" G. Callas, a longtime public servant and elected official, was remembered by colleagues this week as dedicated and caring.

Callas died Dec. 30 at Doey's House, according to his obituary. He would have been 97 in February.

A Democrat, he was a Maryland state delegate for Washington County for three terms beginning in 1983, and served a term on the county's school board prior to that, according to the Maryland State Archives and Herald-Mail archives.

Don Munson, a Republican whose served in the House of Delegates and then the state Senate during Callas' tenure as a state lawmaker, said Callas dedicated his life to public service and never forgot why he was in Annapolis.

"He took the job seriously and he loved the people of Washington County and wanted to do everything that he could for them," said Munson, 85, of Hagerstown.

"Pete was a very likable guy and I don't think he had a mean bone in his body," Munson said. "You could go talk to Pete and a conversation would be a serious conversation and a rational conversation."

Former delegate and House Majority Leader D. Bruce Poole, D-Washington, remembered Callas as "one of the most caring people I've ever known. He had a range of emotions; I mean, he really cared about the issues, and he would smile or laugh frequently, get angry occasionally and cry at times. I just have never seen a public official really have such an emotional response and be so committed to the job."

Callas had "a lot of empathy for people," Poole added, and "he went everywhere; his car was plastered with bumper stickers supporting every conceivable cause. And he went to every meeting that you can imagine. I used to tell him, 'Pete, if there were two fireflies that met in the meadow in July, you'd be there.' He'd laugh about it, but he loved doing that stuff."

Peter George Callas was born in Hagerstown on Feb. 15, 1926, one of five children of Greek immigrants George J. and Stella Stratos Callas, according to his obituary. His older brother, Michael G. "Mike" Callas, was a longtime Hagerstown businessman, philanthropist and civic leader. He died in 2004.

Pete Callas went to Hagerstown High School, served in the U.S. Navy and graduated from Western Maryland College (now McDaniel College). He also studied political science and worked in Sweden at the Bank of Scandanavia from 1949 to 1951 before he was called to serve in the Korean War, according to Herald-Mail archives. He also earned a doctorate in school administration from George Washington University.

After his military service, he taught in four local schools and was a principal in four others, including Woodland Way School, according to newspaper archives and his obituary. He was assistant director of personnel for Washington County Public Schools and then director of administration before retiring in 1976.

Callas was elected to the school board in 1978, according to Herald-Mail archives. School system spokesperson Erin Anderson said there is record indicating he was board president in 1979. It wasn't immediately clear how long he held that position.

He married Margaret Roulette in 1965. A retired teacher, she died in 2007, according to her Minnich Funeral Home obituary.

"My best memories of (Pete), as a person, is the love and devotion toward his wife, Margaret," said former state Sen. Patricia Cushwa, D-Washington, who was appointed to that position after the death of her husband, Sen. Vic Cushwa.

"She and I would often travel to Annapolis together and have dinner with Vic and Pete, and be part of the legislative doings," Cushwa said. "When Margaret became so ill, before Pete retired, he would remind me to visit her in his absence."

Poole said one of the challenges Callas faced during his political career was dealing with his late wife's health issues while he served. But Poole said Margaret Callas "never complained. She was an incredible woman and she backed him, and that's just so essential in politics to have a spouse who backs you and what you're doing, and she was always there."

Legislative career in Annapolis

"Being part of Annapolis doings, being an elected representative, was a capstone to Pete's career and public service. He loved it, and he upheld the interests of his constituents always," Cushwa said.

"He was sharp at all things legislative," Cushwa said. "His intelligence and integrity made him popular in Annapolis. Pete 'worked across the aisle' and didn't give a hoot about party affiliation when it came time to get the deal done. Always in the forefront, his great family values of hard work and decency made him the super-hero of the community."

Poole had known Callas even before they served together.

"I used to see him at the Democratic picnics and he had a feeling of almost like a kind high school counselor … Pete was a pretty gentle guy," Poole said. "And he would spend a lot of time walking around talking to everybody and taking notes and nodding and just visiting with people. (He) really had a very different approach for politics, but it certainly worked because he got reelected over and over again."

"I would say the biggest challenge he had was that really, he didn't commit on a lot of issues and he would go back and forth until the last moment. And so that caused him difficulty in gaining position and status in Annapolis. But on the other hand, he was really good at reading the voters, and I think that made him very popular at home."

Poole and Callas served on different committees and had different functions in the House, but worked together on local issues.

"I think probably for our time, the biggest overall (local) effort was the Quad-State Conference and getting the four states to work together cohesively, particularly for drug issues at the time," Poole said. "And I think even though we unfortunately still have one heck of a drug problem, the efforts at all that were very effective."

The thing people should remember most about Callas, he said, was that "unless you were an absolutely villainous figure, Pete liked you. And Pete would get teased about not committing on issues, because he'd go back and forth and back and forth on his position, and people would get frustrated by that. But I absolutely believe it was because, one, he was an academic so he didn't see things in black and white. He saw things in gray. And secondly, he wanted to make everybody happy.

"The biggest impression I'm left with is he was a different man for a different time," Poole said. "He was a very friendly, gentle man who had tremendous access for his constituents and who hardly ever got into partisan politics. Think about that — and think about where we are now. It's just so fundamentally different I don't know that Pete could get elected if he ran for office today."

Advocate in the fight against Alzheimer's disease

One of the things that stood out to Munson about Callas' legislative career was when Callas recognized the impact of Alzheimer's on people and their families and put the first piece of legislation in the Maryland General Assembly regarding the disease.

"The progress we've made on that disease is partly because of his efforts," Munson said.

Callas' obituary says he was successful in passing many health bills, including creating the Task Force on Alzheimer's Disease and Related Disorders, "one of the first in the nation to study and pass legislation to treat dementia." Callas served on that task force as well as a coordinating council on Alzheimer's and related disorders, according to the Maryland State Archives.

The Baltimore/Central Maryland Chapter of the Alzheimer's Disease and Related Disorders Association honored Callas for his contributions to Alzheimer's awareness in 1986.

The Maryland task force model for Alzheimer's and related disorders became a model for similar commissions across the country, according to newspaper archives.

A seat belt saved his life

Callas talked on camera in 1990 for a video about seat belt safety as part of a campaign to convince the states without a seat belt law at the time to pass legislation requiring motorists wear them. It also was meant to encourage the 34 states with seat belt laws to educate motorists about the importance of wearing seat belts.

In August 1987, Callas told the newspaper a seat belt saved his life when a freight truck slammed into his 1983 Toyota on the Baltimore Beltway near the Reisterstown exit.

The impact popped Callas' door open and he said he would have been ejected if not for the seat belt he was wearing, Callas recalled in 1990.

Maryland had passed a controversial seat belt law a year before Callas' crash.

Glenn Miller Orchestra fan and advocate

Callas also loved the music of the Glenn Miller Orchestra and was part of an effort, which continues, to urge presidents to posthumously award Miller the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his contributions for raising money and U.S. bonds and helping morale during World War II.

Callas was the driving force behind the Joint Veterans Council of Washington County's project to bring the Glenn Miller Orchestra to perform at The Maryland Theatre in 2008. The effort raised more than $11,000 from local businesses.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Mail: Colleagues remember longtime Maryland public servant, official