Ed Thompson grew up in Elroy, Wisconsin where his father ran a small grocery store with a gas pump out front and his mother was a public school teacher at a one room schoolhouse. As a boy, Ed worked in the store after school and on weekends. Ed’s experience in the family store, and working summers on a nearby farm with his older brother Tommy, taught him the value of hard work.
Young Ed with his brothers and sister: from left to right, Art, Ed, Tommy, and Juliann.
In school, Ed won seventh place in the Wisconsin Spelling Bee as an seventh grader. At Royall High School, Ed was active in the drama department and competed in football, basketball, and track. After high school, Ed briefly attended the University of Wisconsin at Madison before enlisting in the U.S. Navy during the Vietnam War. After an honorable discharge from the armed forces, Ed married his high school sweetheart Kathy Nelson and settled in Elroy with his family.
Ed has four children: Ann Marie Greene, a public school teacher in Richmond, Virginia; Kristin Beth Ashford, a state university professor in Lexington, Kentucky; Allan Edward “Chip” Thompson, a public school teacher in Tomah; and Joshua Thompson, an attorney with a non-profit law firm in Sacramento, California. Ed is also the proud grandfather of eight grandchildren.
Ed has lived the hard-working life at the heart of Wisconsin’s character. Some years, long hours of back-straining work were just enough to put food on the table and pay the electric bill.
Ed’s children: from left to right, Chip, Ann Marie, Kristin, and Joshua.
Ed has shoveled asphalt in a road crew, plowed snow for the county, welded in the cab shop of the Janesville auto assembly line, worked at the Oxford federal prison, and competed in Golden Gloves boxing.
In 1990, Ed bought the building on Tomah’s main street that would become Mr. Ed’s Tee Pee Supper Club. Rejecting advice to tear down the building, Ed instead restored it to a welcoming supper club. Over the past twenty years, Ed has brought the Tee Pee to its status as a Monroe County institution. Since 1993, Ed has hosted Tomah’s annual free Thanksgiving dinner at the Tee Pee. There, the people of Tomah come together and provide meals to those less fortunate on Thanksgiving. Last Thanksgiving, they served over 1,200 people at the Tee Pee.
Ed with volunteers preparing the free Annual Tee Pee Community Thanksgiving Dinner.
Ed was elected Mayor of Tomah — a city of over 8,000 people — in April of 2000, defeating a two term incumbent. As Mayor, Ed worked to shape up Tomah’s financial situation. He helped reduce the city’s debt by over $4 million without resorting to an expected property tax hike. Ed also saved Tomah taxpayers millions of dollars by engineering a settlement of a longstanding dispute with the Environmental Protection Agency regarding a Superfund landfill clean-up. As Mayor, Ed also championed and oversaw the creation of a senior and disabled program at minimal cost per year and of a senior center at no cost to taxpayers.
After serving as Mayor for two years, Ed ran for Governor of Wisconsin as a Libertarian in 2002. Ed’s platform of smaller government, lower taxes, and honest government caught on with a Wisconsin populace concerned about the growth of government, higher taxes, and scandals ripping through Madison. Ed garnered more than 185,000 votes – 10.5% of all the votes cast in the Governor race and the highest vote percentage received by any third-party Wisconsin Governor campaign in sixty years. Where people knew Ed best, he won the Governor race. Ed won the most votes of any candidate in Juneau County in which he grew up and Monroe County in which he has lived and worked for the last twenty years. In Tomah, Ed won a majority of votes in the Governor race, and the record voter turnout required the printing of additional ballots on election day.
Following his run for Governor, Ed removed himself from politics. He was the subject of a documentary titled “A Remarkable Man,” which detailed his life and his run for Governor. Ed remained removed from politics until 2005 when voters spontaneously drafted him on election day as an unregistered write-in candidate and elected him to serve on the Tomah City Council. Having not run for the position, Ed was reluctant to accept, but the overwhelming support he received led him back into public office.
After serving as a councilman for two years, Ed ran for Mayor of Tomah again. Ed defeated the three term incumbent Mayor by a two-to-one margin. As Mayor, Ed again worked to control government spending. Ed has helped ensure, including by vetoing a proposed city budget, that Tomah residential and business property tax rates decreased each year of his Mayor term. Despite the strong support Ed has for reelection as Mayor, Ed has announced he will step down from the Mayor’s office at the term’s conclusion this spring so he may dedicate more time and attention to his State Senate campaign.
Ed speaking at a statewide meeting of the Wisconsin Farmers Union.
Ed continues to own and manage Mr. Ed’s Tee Pee Supper Club. When Ed is not on the campaign trail, he can be found most days at the Tee Pee running his business—or performing a lead role of a play at the community theater across the street.
