Before his election to congress, Meade was a practicing lawyer in
Paintsville, Kentucky, and served as a lieutenant in the
United States Navy from November 1943 until January 1946. Meade held several elected and appointed political positions. Elected to the Eightieth Congress in 1947, he served one term before he was unseated by
Carl D. Perkins in 1948. He was an unsuccessful candidate for the Republican gubernatorial nomination in 1951. Wendell Howes Meade lost a six-candidate race in the August 7, 1954, Republican primary for Kentucky's 8th Congressional District. Meade was zone operations commissioner for the
Federal Housing Administration from 1957 to 1961; Kentucky's commissioner of personnel from 1968 to February 1969; and a member of the Kentucky Workman's Compensation Board from 1969 to 1970. == Personal life ==