Latest news with #KitBond
The Independent
20-05-2025
- Politics
- The Independent
Four-term US Sen. Christopher 'Kit' Bond remembered for training a generation of Missouri leaders
Christopher 'Kit' Bond, a Republican who was Missouri 's youngest governor before serving four terms in the U.S. Senate, was remembered Tuesday as a beloved statesman who helped train a generation of leaders. The Missouri State Highway Patrol escorted his body from St. Louis, where he died last week at the age of 86, to the Missouri Capitol in Jefferson City, where hundreds of people gathered for a memorial service. Bond is to lie in state through Wednesday so members of the public can pay their respects. 'Over and over again, Kit launched the careers of young people, talented, committed, dedicated people who later, after appointment, found opportunity beckoning them to achievement levels they hadn't anticipated,' said John Ashcroft, who was a governor, senator and attorney general under President George W. Bush. 'Kit was a person of both individual and governmental integrity. I have no recollection of anytime where Kit failed to live up to his commitments.' As a member of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee, Bond secured federal money for big and small projects in Missouri, scoffing at government watchdog groups that considered him a master of pork-barrel spending. Democratic U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver recalled that while he was serving as mayor of Kansas City, a monument to honor World War I veterans known as Liberty Memorial had fallen into disrepair. He likened the 217-foot (66-meter) tall structure that was built after a burst of postwar patriotism to the Leaning Tower of Pisa. He said Bond stepped in with federal dollars to help restore it. 'Working together as friends was the propellant that allowed us, with others, to alter the landscape of Kansas City,' Cleaver said. Early in his career, Bond was considered a political wunderkind. When he took office at age 33 as Missouri's youngest governor, he was also the state's first Republican chief executive in about three decades and garnered consideration as a vice presidential candidate. His early success stalled when he lost a reelection bid, but he later rebounded to win another term as governor before being elected to the Senate in 1986 and eventually becoming the patriarch of the Missouri Republican Party. Testaments to Bond's longevity in the public arena are stamped across Missouri. A federal courthouse in Jefferson City and a life sciences center at the University of Missouri-Columbia are named after him. A highway bridge crossing the Missouri River in Hermann and one in Kansas City also carry his name. 'Kit Bond was an exceptional person who was blessed with many talents," said former U.S. Sen. John Danforth. 'He was very smart. He was highly educated. He had boundless energy. He wanted for nothing. He could have clung on to what was his and lived comfortably only for himself. But that was not what he did. He invested his talents, put them at risk, and he produced such a great return to the state.' ___ Hollingsworth reported from Kansas City, Missouri.
Washington Post
20-05-2025
- Politics
- Washington Post
Four-term US Sen. Christopher 'Kit' Bond remembered for training a generation of Missouri leaders
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — Christopher 'Kit' Bond, a Republican who was Missouri's youngest governor before serving four terms in the U.S. Senate, was remembered Tuesday as a beloved statesman who helped train a generation of leaders. The Missouri State Highway Patrol escorted his body from St. Louis, where he died last week at the age of 86, to the Missouri Capitol in Jefferson City, where hundreds of people gathered for a memorial service. Bond is to lie in state through Wednesday so members of the public can pay their respects.
Associated Press
20-05-2025
- Politics
- Associated Press
Four-term US Sen. Christopher 'Kit' Bond remembered for training a generation of Missouri leaders
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Christopher 'Kit' Bond, a Republican who was Missouri's youngest governor before serving four terms in the U.S. Senate, was remembered Tuesday as a beloved statesman who helped train a generation of leaders. The Missouri State Highway Patrol escorted his body from St. Louis, where he died last week at the age of 86, to the Missouri Capitol in Jefferson City, where hundreds of people gathered for a memorial service. Bond is to lie in state through Wednesday so members of the public can pay their respects. 'Over and over again, Kit launched the careers of young people, talented, committed, dedicated people who later, after appointment, found opportunity beckoning them to achievement levels they hadn't anticipated,' said John Ashcroft, who was a governor, senator and attorney general under President George W. Bush. 'Kit was a person of both individual and governmental integrity. I have no recollection of anytime where Kit failed to live up to his commitments.' As a member of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee, Bond secured federal money for big and small projects in Missouri, scoffing at government watchdog groups that considered him a master of pork-barrel spending. Democratic U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver recalled that while he was serving as mayor of Kansas City, a monument to honor World War I veterans known as Liberty Memorial had fallen into disrepair. He likened the 217-foot (66-meter) tall structure that was built after a burst of postwar patriotism to the Leaning Tower of Pisa. He said Bond stepped in with federal dollars to help restore it. 'Working together as friends was the propellant that allowed us, with others, to alter the landscape of Kansas City,' Cleaver said. Early in his career, Bond was considered a political wunderkind. When he took office at age 33 as Missouri's youngest governor, he was also the state's first Republican chief executive in about three decades and garnered consideration as a vice presidential candidate. His early success stalled when he lost a reelection bid, but he later rebounded to win another term as governor before being elected to the Senate in 1986 and eventually becoming the patriarch of the Missouri Republican Party. Testaments to Bond's longevity in the public arena are stamped across Missouri. A federal courthouse in Jefferson City and a life sciences center at the University of Missouri-Columbia are named after him. A highway bridge crossing the Missouri River in Hermann and one in Kansas City also carry his name. 'Kit Bond was an exceptional person who was blessed with many talents,' said former U.S. Sen. John Danforth. 'He was very smart. He was highly educated. He had boundless energy. He wanted for nothing. He could have clung on to what was his and lived comfortably only for himself. But that was not what he did. He invested his talents, put them at risk, and he produced such a great return to the state.' ___ Hollingsworth reported from Kansas City, Missouri.
Yahoo
14-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Kit Bond remembered for contributions to Missouri
MISSOURI — Former and current state leaders are reflecting on the life and legacy of Kit Bond. The former U.S. Senator and Missouri Governor passed away today at 86. Ozarks First's Bailey Strohl spoke with Bond's successor in the U.S. Senate, Roy Blunt, this afternoon, as well as a former district director, about his character and Bond's constant fight to better Missourians' lives. 'What a great life, what a great loss. What a good friend. Nobody understood our state better or did more for Missouri than Kit Bond,' says Former U.S. Senator for Missouri Roy Blunt. Despite making Missouri history and climbing the ranks to Washington D.C., longtime supporters say former Governor and U.S. Senator Christopher 'Kit' Bond never forgot who he was working for. 'You know, he was always seen as a guy who was out there competing for whatever was going to be good for our state, whether that was an appropriation or an opportunity of some kind,' says Blunt. Bond was born in St. Louis and practiced law until 1972, at the age of 33, when he became Missouri's youngest governor. 'He always had a joke or a story to share and a smile on his face. Everywhere we went, he always had a smile,' says Stacy Burks, Former SWMO District Director for Senator Bond's Office. He was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1986 and served four terms before retiring in 2010. 'You know, he loved serving the state of Missouri. And the people of Missouri, in the end, truly had their very best interests at heart in everything he did,' Burks adds. Both Blunt and Stacy Burks say Bond's legacy lives on in the roads and bridges he secured funding for, and the taxpayer dollars he fought to bring back to Missourians. 'You know, he loved serving the state of Missouri. And the people of Missouri, in the end, truly had their very best interests at heart in everything he did,' says Burks. 'So we're going to miss Kit Bond. But there are plenty of things left in Missouri to remind us of Kit Bond and how much he appreciated and how much he understood our state,' adds Blunt. Bond's cause of death has not yet been announced. Ozarks First will be sure to update you when funeral arrangements are made. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
New York Times
14-05-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
Christopher Bond, Former Missouri Governor and Senator, Dies at 86
Christopher S. Bond, who was Missouri's youngest governor and the state's first Republican governor since 1945 when he was elected in 1972, and who went on to serve four terms in the U.S. Senate, died on Tuesday in St. Louis. He was 86. His death was announced by Gov. Mike Kehoe, a fellow Republican. The announcement did not say where in St. Louis he died. Mr. Bond, known as Kit, was 31 in 1970 when he was elected state auditor, defeating a 17-year incumbent. He served from 1971 to 1973, when he became governor, having been elected in November 1972 at age 33. He was the first Republican to hold that position since Forrest C. Donnell left office in 1945. Mr. Bond was defeated for re-election, but he staged a comeback in 1980 by ousting Joseph P. Teasdale, the Democrat who had replaced him. He succeeded Thomas F. Eagleton, a Democrat, in the Senate in 1987 after Mr. Eagleton retired. His election to a fourth term in 2004 was the seventh time that Mr. Bond won statewide office — more than any other candidate in Missouri's history. In 2009, he announced that he would not seek a fifth term in 2010. 'In 1973, I became Missouri's youngest governor,' Mr. Bond, then 69, said at the time. 'I do not aspire to become Missouri's oldest senator.' Shortly after Mr. Bond retired from the Senate, John D. Ashcroft, a Missouri Republican who served with Mr. Bond in the Senate before becoming U.S. attorney general, said: 'Kit Bond put his heart, soul and life into public service — like virtually nobody I've ever seen. He lives it, he breathes it, he sleeps it and he awakes to it.' Christopher Samuel Bond, who was born on March 6, 1939 in St. Louis, was a sixth-generation Missourian. His father, Arthur, had been captain of the 1924 University of Missouri Tigers football team and a Rhodes scholar who headed the export division of his father-in-law's fire brick factory. His mother was Elizabeth (Green) Bond. Kit was raised in Mexico, Mo., about 120 miles northwest of St. Louis. As a child he lost vision in one eye from amblyopia, or lazy eye, a condition that affects the nerves connecting the retina and the brain. He graduated from Deerfield Academy in Massachusetts in 1956; from Princeton, with a bachelor's degree from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public Affairs, in 1960; and from the University of Virginia School of Law with a Juris Doctor degree in 1963. He clerked for Elbert Tuttle, a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals in Georgia; practiced law at Covington & Burling in Washington; and unsuccessfully ran for Congress from a rural House district in the northeastern part of Missouri in 1968. He was hired by John Danforth, the state attorney general, as an assistant attorney general in 1969 and promoted to head the office's consumer protection division a year later. He was 31. After leaving public office, Mr. Bond practiced law and served as a corporate strategy consultant. He and his wife, Carolyn, divorced in 1994. His survivors include his son from that marriage, Sam; his second wife, Linda (Pell) Bond, a Republican fund-raiser; and two grandchildren. Mr. Bond's record as governor and in the Senate was generally considered moderate, although he leaned to the right on issues of the economy and national security. As the ranking Republican on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, he staunchly supported President George W. Bush's Iraq war and domestic security crackdowns. He was one of only nine senators who opposed a bill to insist that Central Intelligence Agency interrogators adhere to Army standards. He said he opposed torture, but he once compared waterboarding to swimming. Mr. Bond supported the Equal Rights Amendment but opposed same-sex marriage. He favored free trade, offshore drilling and a ban on gifts from lobbyists to members of Congress. He was also a sponsor of the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, which required employers with 50 or more workers to provide up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave for family medical emergencies, childbirth or adoption. In 1976, as governor, he rescinded a fiat issued by Gov. Lilburn Boggs in 1838 that ordered the expulsion or extermination of all Mormons from the state. In 2010, after curators at the Missouri State Museum discovered that what they thought was a moon rock was actually a sample of lunar dust, Mr. Bond disclosed that he had inadvertently taken the actual Apollo 17 lunar sample, worth about $5 million, when he left as governor. He returned it. In 1998, when the Internal Revenue Service declared that a fan who caught a record-breaking home run hit by the St. Louis Cardinals first baseman Mark McGwire — a ball estimated to be worth about $140,000 — could be responsible for paying gift tax, Mr. Bond declared, 'If the I.R.S. wants to know why they are the most hated federal agency in America, they need look no further than this.'
