Ted Riehle - Father Of Green-Up Day Dead At 83

Ted Riehle, author of billboard ban, father of Green-Up Day, dead at 83

GRAND ISLE — Former state Rep. Ted Riehle, a Republican activist, environmentalist and author of Vermont’s landmark 1968 anti-billboard law, has died. He was 83.

An obituary in today's Free Press said Riehle died New Year’s Eve after a brief illness.

Riehle, a World War II Navy veteran who also had active-duty stints during the Korea and Vietnam conflicts, was elected to the Vermont House from South Burlington in the special 1965 reapportionment election, re-elected the next year and soon thereafter went to work to enact the nation’s first state billboard ban.

Earlier, Riehle had worked as an executive at the Master Rule Co. in Middletown, N.Y., where he developed several patents, including a locking mechanism for tape measures and a new type of plastic packaging.

After his time in the Legislature, Riehle served as the state’s first planning director under Gov. Deane Davis, a position in which he helped set up the state’s first Green-Up Day, an annual spring cleaning of roadsides that continues. He later served as Vermont director for former U.S. Rep. Richard Mallary.

He later retired to a solar-powered, off-the-grid home on Savage Island on Lake Champlain, where he enjoyed sailing and other pursuits.