Earl Snell was the uncle of "Tonight Show" band leader Doc Severinsen.
Oscar was to be picked up by Oregon Governor Earl Snell for a hunting trip in October 1947 when the plane Snell and Oregon Secretary of State Robert Farrell, among others, crashed en route, killing all four on board.
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On October 28, 1947, Governor Earl Snell was killed in a plane crash along with the next in line of succession, President of the Senate Marshall E. Cornett.
Incumbent governor John Hubert Hall, who took over after Snell's death until the election, lost the Republican nomination 51.13-48.87%, to state senator Douglas McKay, and the Democrats nominated state senator Lew Wallace, who had previously lost to Earl Snell in the 1942 gubernatorial election in a landslide.