John Frank Raley Jr. (September 13, 1926 – August 21, 2012) was a Maryland politician[1][5] and an advocate for education,[4][3] economic development[4][3][5] and protection and restoration of the Chesapeake Bay.
[4][3] He was a Democrat, a State Senator,[4] and a member of the Maryland House of Delegates[1][4][3] and is widely credited for modernizing St. Mary's County's badly outdated infrastructure[5] (schools, roads, bridges, telecommunications and electric services),[5] thus paving the way for a forty-year period of economic growth and development.
[1] In 1962 Raley organized a slate of candidates who ran with him to replace the County political machine[4] that had presided over economic stagnation for decades.
He was elected,[6] and followed this with a large scale and ultimately successful campaign that he led while he was both in and out of office to bring modern development[3] and improvements in education to the St. Mary's County.
It had long depressed the development of the local labor market and had created a widespread pattern of concentrated landholdings, leaving most non-landowning county residents (both Black and White) poor and uneducated.
It was in the senate where his influence became sufficient to begin to leverage funding for modernization projects[4] and also political reform[4] for the county,[2] moving a large number of community capitol improvements into action.
As a State Senator,[1] Raley was largely credited with providing most of the new infrastructure that was required to economically develop St. Mary's County.
[3] Raley's elective office career was cut short when a successful smear campaign falsely accused him of attempting to directly eliminate the very popular slot machines (gambling) that were all over the county at the time.
He also became very involved in promoting environmental and policy advancements for the restoration and protection of the Chesapeake Bay for which he was later recognized by the state of Maryland.
[4][3][2] Under Raley's decades long board leadership the school then rose to national prominence, now ranked as the 5th best public college in the United States by U.S. News & World Report.