EVANSVILLE, Ind. — Just the mention of Wayne Parke‘s name prompts eye rolls, winces or forced smiles from many Vanderburgh County Republican activists.

Tapped for the party chairmanship by GOP precinct committee members in 2010, Parke was the target of a pre-election campaign to force his resignation. Parke had tried to enforce a party loyalty rule against Evansville Deputy Mayor Steve Schaefer, who publicly expressed support for a Democratic candidate. Both efforts ultimately fizzled.

More about this story:How the plot to oust GOP chief followed his move against deputy mayor

Controversy and Wayne Parke are old friends.

Their acquaintance predates Parke’s elevation to the party chairmanship by two months, when then-Chairman Nick Hermann dismissed him as party treasurer over fundraising issues the two men wouldn’t discuss.

Marshaling arguments in his favor, the 74-year-old Parke pointed out that he has presided over tremendous successes for the GOP in local elections. Republicans in presidential and statewide races typically carry Vanderburgh County.

Parke, a retired executive of Peabody Energy Co. and Black Beauty Coal Co., also is a major funder of local GOP operations. A party fundraising report shows he had already pumped $23,550 in direct and in-kind contributions into the GOP this year by June 5.

But Parke also has conducted himself in ways guaranteed to make enemies.

A formal complaint seeking the party chief’s removal bore six signatures — Steve Hammer, Vanderburgh County coordinator for Sen.-elect Mike Braun’s 2018 campaign; Kirk Byram, the GOP’s 2014 nominee for sheriff; Chad Howard, a precinct committeeman; County Commissioner Cheryl Musgrave; Alfonso Vidal, a Warrick County-based GOP activist; and local party secretary Hobart Scales.

But multiple Republicans said those six names represent just a fraction of the opposition to Parke within the GOP.

It’s not just the half-dozen or more precinct committee members he has removed or his habit of supporting one Republican against another in primary elections. Parke’s involvement in primaries — often seeing his preferred candidate lose — is contrary to the wishes of prominent Republicans who have asked him to stop.

You can still hear bitterness in the voice of Sean Selby, the party’s nominee for a County Commissioners seat in 2016. Selby hasn’t forgotten that Parke vocally supported former Libertarian Party officer Robb Myers against him in a caucus of precinct committee members.

“It was the first caucus that anybody had ever seen a party chairman get involved in,” said Selby, who narrowly lost the November election to Democrat Ben Shoulders.

Selby had publicly criticized Parke two years earlier. He didn’t dispute the formal complaint’s assertion that Parke “shunned” him and “offered no support in any way” to him against Democrat Shoulders.

Parke’s disputes with Musgrave — a Republican politician so successful that the national GOP once entreated her to run for Congress — are the stuff of legend.

Calling her divisive, Parke unsuccessfully worked for Musgrave’s defeat in a 2016 GOP primary and predicted she would lose that year’s election. Months after she won, he sought her resignation and had her removed from a party position. Parke once even asked Musgrave to leave a GOP dinner. Musgrave calls him out of touch with Republican rank and file.

Musgrave supported Democrat Jeff Hatfield in this year’s County Commissioners race, calling him a “solid conservative.” It was heresy in Parke’s eyes, but he couldn’t leave it at that.

In a Nov. 13 email to local GOP activists, Parke included a stinging “Chairman’s Note” meant to rebuke Musgrave for supporting Hatfield. “I encourage all voters to remember her Party disloyalty if she ever runs for another political office. I know — I will not forget,” Parke wrote.

City Councilman Dan McGinn left the Republican Party in 2017 over Parke’s criticisms of him for voting in favor of a tax increase and establishing an independent council that could redraw political districts to curb gerrymandering. The two men had a history. In April 2009, Parke ran unsuccessfully in a GOP caucus to choose a successor for departed First Ward City Council member Jeff Kniese. The seat went to McGinn, former head of Mesker Park Zoo & Botanic Garden.

When the two old foes went at it again in 2017, McGinn said he wouldn’t buckle to Parke’s demands for “adherence to political dogma.” Parke demanded McGinn step aside so voters could be “represented by a Republican.”

It was vintage Parke. Asked about his war with Musgrave, he said he will put his differences with her aside “if she demonstrates she’s acting in the best interests of the people.”

Parke said he’ll continue to criticize other Republicans — no matter how high-ranking, popular or successful — “when I believe they are wrong.” He said his habit of choosing sides in intra-party contests is meant to encourage people to cast ballots when they might not otherwise. It’s leadership.

“I am the party chairman. I am the leader. People who lead, lead!” Parke said, his voice rising, in a conference room at GOP headquarters. “You don’t lead from the rear. You lead from the front. And this city and county at one time was considered a Democrat city and a Democrat county. Well, it’s not anymore.”

Parke wouldn’t rule out running for another four-year term as chairman in a party caucus when his current term expires in March 2021.

That may be an opportunity for his critics — or it may be a big nothing.

It’s one thing to grouse about Parke and quite another to get rid of him. The job is unpaid, thankless and demanding. Candidates get hosannas when they win. When they lose, party chairmen get the blame.

Selby has a ready response when other Republicans complain about Parke.

“My thing always to them is, ‘Well, who are you going to replace him with?’ And then at that juncture almost always everybody says, ‘Well, we don’t know,'” he said. “People would ask if I was interested, and I would tell them I’m not necessarily interested in something like that.

“And that would pretty much be the end of the conversation.”

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