Reflections of a lieutenant governor

<p dir="ltr">In his new memoir, he describes himself as a "meek" boy who dealt with a severe stutter when he was growing up on the northside of Indianapolis. So <strong>John Mutz</strong>, now 85, seemed unlikely to carve out a career as a political and civic leader.</p> <p dir="ltr">But even before his two terms as Indiana’s lieutenant governor (1981-89), he was playing a key role in many facets of the modern history of his hometown, including the birth of <a href="https://indianapublicmedia.org/momentofindianahistory/unigov/"><strong>Unigov</strong></a>, the consolidation of most aspects of city and <strong>Marion County</strong> governments that was considered revolutionary in the late 1960s.</p> <p dir="ltr"><img src= "http://hoosierhistorylive.org/images/book-cover-John-Mutz.JPG" alt="Book-cover-John-Mutz" width="165" height="237" align= "right" />When Mutz and other emerging political leaders, including <strong><a href= "https://www.thelugarcenter.org/about-lugar.html">Richard Lugar</a></strong>, started brainstorming about ways to invigorate their hometown - which in the mid-1960s was "regarded as a sleepy backwater," as Mutz puts it - their vision was not to unify city and county governments. According to <strong><em><a href= "https://indianahistory.org/press-release/an-examined-life-the-john-mutz-story-from-ihs-press-chronicles-life-of-former-indiana-lieutenant-governor/">An Examined Life: The John Mutz Story</a></em></strong> (Indiana Historical Society Press, 2020), they aspired to make the Hoosier capital the home of a public, state-supported university independent of either <strong><a href= "https://www.indiana.edu/">Indiana</a></strong> or <strong><a href="https://www.purdue.edu/">Purdue</a></strong> universities.</p> <p dir="ltr">To explore how that effort changed direction - as well as other aspects of political and civic history - Mutz will be Nelson's guest. A lifelong Republican, Mutz made headlines in September when he became, <strong><a href= "https://www.ibj.com/articles/im-still-a-proud-rep