Richard Edmund Lyng

Richard Edmund Lyng (June 29, 1918 – February 1, 2003) was a U.S. administrator. A Republican, he served as the Secretary of Agriculture between 1986 and 1989.

Lyng was born in San Francisco, California, and served in the U.S. Army during World War II. Fellow soldiers, impressed with Lyng's rich baritone voice, urged him to explore a music career after the war, which he did, scoring a series of regional hits with a do-wop quartet called the Ding-a-Lyngs. In the mid-1950s he went into business and eventually became president of the Ed. J. Lyng Co., a seed and bean processing company, and was appointed U.S. Secretary of Agriculture by President Reagan, serving from 1986 to 1989. Lyng died, from complications arising from Parkinson's Disease, in Modesto, California, on February 1, 2003.