14
TOWER
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Winter 2015
BACK TO CLASS WITH . . .
JACK TREADWAY
BY:
FÉLIX
ALFONSO PEÑA
PHOTOGRAPHY BY:
DOUGLAS BENEDICT
Busy but fun – that’s how DR. JACK M. TREADWAY char-
acterizes his life nowadays. Although he’s been retired from the
Department of Political Science since 2005, he has plenty to fill
his days. He and his wife Bonnie, also retired, enjoy spending
time with grandchildren, maintaining their 7-acre property in
Greenwich Township and traveling when they can. Treadway
often succumbs to the lure of the links, keeps an analytical eye
on the Pennsylvania political scene, shares his insights with the
public and is currently working on another book – his third –
about voter behavior.
But above all, family takes priority. Daughter Tara’s two
sons, Connor, 5, and Carter, 3, typically are over a couple
of days a week, Treadway said, although Connor has started
full-day kindergarten.
“It’s fun, but you can’t wear them out,” he laughed. “They’re
tough to keep up with.”
And their large yard demands a lot of attention during the
growing season.
“It takes a lot of work, but I’m not a master gardener,” he
said. “The rose garden died out, but we have perennial beds,
landscaping, raspberries and blueberries. We lease a large part
of the seven acres to a local farmer. I’m glad that he farms it,
when you’re out in the country it can get wild pretty fast.”
He and Bonnie recently got a chance to experience the wild
firsthand, when they took a cruise to Alaska, and they were
smitten by the sights. The couple took advantage of a visit to
son Justin in Seattle to add the cruise to their itinerary, which
included excursions to Fairbanks and Denali National Park.
On their trip, the Treadways marveled at the blueness of the
rivers of ice, and the power that grinds rock into a gray powder
that saturates the lakes fed by the glacier melt.
“It’s so beautiful, so wide open and wild,” Treadway recalled.
“Every time you turn around there’s a vista. The glaciers are
spectacular, and Denali National Park is unbelievable. It’s
breathtaking. You can’t appreciate the glaciers until you
see them.”
Treadway occasionally runs into former students. Among
them, MARK R. WEAVER ’83, M ’85,
has become a well-known Republican
political consultant and strategist.
An attorney now based in Ohio, he has served in various
capacities at the national and state level.
Treadway typically connects with a couple of Kutztown
colleagues – professors Thomas Grant, sports management
and leadership studies, and DAVID D. WAGAMAN ’80,
business administration – on a much more relaxed plane:
the golf course.
Although he greatly enjoys his time on the links, he laughs
off a question about his proficiency with a simple, “It depends
on the day.”
Not content to sit on the sidelines, he continues doing
research, an extension of earlier work – “Elections in Pennsyl-
vania: A Century of Partisan Conflict in the Keystone State,”
published in 2005.
“It’s one of the reasons I still get calls from time to time,”
he said.
The scope of the data gathering, which reaches back to
1900, is wide, and encompasses voter turnout, re-election
rates of legislators, margins of victories and statewide officials
and legislators.
“The reason that I started the original book, published
in 2005, was just to look at some of trends that were charac-
teristic of contemporary politics,” Treadway explained.
“I discovered that some things change very little. It’s almost
impossible to beat incumbents – that was true 100 years
ago, too. So much of what is going on now has always
been the case.”
However, some things have changed.
“People are not voting as often as they used to,” he revealed.
“They’re getting turned off, and they don’t vote the straight
party ticket like they did in the 19th and early 20th century.”
But Treadway doesn’t lay the blame for this on politicians’
shoulders. In a piece published in the Allentown Morning
Call last year, Treadway chided voters, noting that they vote
for candidates who offer simplistic, short-term solutions to
complex problems, scorning those who address the reality of
long-term, meaningful fixes. The politicians give the voters
what they want, the solutions don’t work, and disaffection
follows. Bipartisanship among politicians also mirrors that
of the voters, he said, and without that, it will be difficult
for the state and nation to move forward.
In the meantime, Treadway continues working on his
latest book, which he says is close to being finished.
“If I stopped playing golf, it would be sooner rather
than later,” he quipped. “But I’m not going to stop
playing golf.”
“People don’t vote the straight party ticket like
they did in the 19th and early 20th century.”
—DR. JACK TREADWAY
