James Oberstar: “For me, today is a very fulfilling, as well as nostalgic, moment to move this bill to designate the Federal building and…”

“For me, today is a very fulfilling, as well as nostalgic, moment to move this bill to designate the Federal building and the U.S. courthouse and customhouse in Duluth for Judge Gerald W. Heaney. He was appointed judge of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit on November 3, 1966. He took senior status in December 31, 1988; finally retired last August after 40 years on the bench. But that is only part of the story. Gerald Heaney was born January 29, 1918, in Goodhue, a rural community in southeastern Minnesota. He grew up in a farming community, learned the values of rural America, went to my college which I attended many years later, College of St. Thomas, where he graduated and went on to the University of Minnesota where he got his law degree in 1941, but then started a new chapter in the life of Gerald Heaney. He enlisted in the Army in World War II. He was trained as a United States Army Ranger, and he was on the landing craft at 6:30 in the morning on Omaha Beach in Normandy.”