Jul 17, 2016 4 min read

Andrew Uram, 95, and his son, Tom, are in Cleveland for the Republican National Convention and pledged to support presumptive presidential nominee Donald Trump.

Guess which one is going to his 10th convention and which one is attending for the first time in an official capacity?

Tom Uram, 56, was elected in the April primary to two positions representing the 18th Congressional District, delegate and alternate delegate, but he had to choose just one.

A caucus met last month to fill the alternate’s post.

“All the county chairmen got together, and they thought it would be great to for him to go in my spot,” Tom Uram said of his dad. “He’s gone before as a guest.” That was when Andrew Uram was in Houston for the nomination of President George H.W. Bush in 1992.

Trump won Washington and Greene counties in the primary, besting Ted Cruz and John Kasich, who were still in the race at that point. Two other delegates from the 18th, which takes in part of Washington and Greene counties, were also elected, one from Moon Township, Allegheny County, and one from Latrobe, Westmoreland County. There were no local delegates elected from the 9th Congressional District, which takes in the rest of Washington and Greene.

Blood of the Uram family runs GOP red.

Julie Uram, Andrew’s late wife, was a Washington County Republican Party chairman, and she also was elected delegate to conventions. Apparently deciding it was time to involve a younger generation, she collected signatures on her son’s behalf as a delegate candidate in 1980 when he was a student at the University of Kentucky.

“Those were the days when the Republican Party was outnumbered in Washington County 4 to 1,” he explained. “I ran for alternate and no one else had run.”

After coming close to a nomination in 1976, former California Gov. Ronald Reagan was the undisputed nominee four years later when Tom Uram and fellow Republicans gathered at the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit.

The younger Uram’s Republican convention delegate duties have also taken him to Dallas, New Orleans, Houston, San Diego, Philadelphia, New York City, St. Paul, Minn., and Tampa.

Also at a young age, Andrew Uram, then a resident of Butler, signed up for the U.S. Navy. He was a mere teenager, and he recalled Wednesday, “My boyhood dream to fly.”

Uram went to a monthlong Citizens’ Military Training Camp at Fort Meade, Md., and then became a naval aviation cadet. “I had about 200 hours of flying time,” he said, in everything from kite-like gliders to Piper Cubs. “The war ended before I finished my training.”

Eligible to vote in his first presidential election in 1944, he cast his ballot for Republican Thomas E. Dewey. Franklin Roosevelt went on to win an unprecedented fourth term but died a year later.

Andrew Uram has had a career in real estate and also worked for MetLife and Mellon Bank, from which he retired in 1986. Washington County Republican Party headquarters are in his East Maiden Street building, but unlike his son and wife, he’s never held office in the party.

“I always stayed in the background,” Andrew Uram said. “I let them do all the work.”

Politicos come and go, but Tom Uram speculated he might be the longest-running elected delegate in the country.

“I think this is going to be exciting,” Tom Uram said, noting Trump has predicted this is going to be a different kind of convention. As someone who’s seen many, he observed, “It will be good to have a change.”

Although there are bound to be demonstrations in Cleveland, Tom Uram foresees them remaining in designated areas.

“Orderly protests are no problem,” he said.