MOUNT VERNON, Ind. (AP) — Former Indiana Congressman Joel Deckard has died at age 74.
Schneider Funeral Home in Mount Vernon, Indiana, says Deckard died Tuesday in Texas, where he had been living recently. A cause of death wasn’t immediately available for the Republican who was elected in 1978 and 1980 to represent southwestern Indiana in the U.S. House after eight years in the Indiana Legislature.
Deckard was running for a third congressional term when he was involved in an alcohol-related crash in 1982 and lost to Democrat Frank McCloskey.
The Evansville Courier & Press reports (http://bit.ly/2c3Bz1K ) Deckard was a solar energy advocate in Congress and helped start local environmental advocacy group Valley Watch.
Deckard later moved to Florida and wrote a 2010 online book in which he described smuggling Brazilian immigrant families into Canada.