Kansas honors ‘greatest’ hometown hero Dole

TOPEKA, Kan. — Bob Dole was remembered in his western Kansas hometown on Saturday as a compassionate patriot, shaped by small-town values and a tough prairie landscape to become “the greatest of the Greatest Generation.”

Dole made his last journey to his home state for a memorial service in Russell, so that fellow Kansans could honor the military service during World War II that left him severely wounded and the distinguished political career that followed his recovery. The day’s events began with a public viewing of his casket and a memorial service at a Roman Catholic church in Russell, the small town some 240 miles west of Kansas City where he grew up during the Great Depression.

Another memorial was to follow Saturday afternoon in the state capital of Topeka, where Dole briefly served in the Kansas House in the 1950s. The dignitaries

at both events included Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly; Kansas’ two Republican U.S. senators, Roger Marshall and Jerry Moran, and former GOP U.S. Sens. Pat Roberts and Nancy Kassebaum Baker.

Dole died Sunday at the age of 98 after serving nearly 36 years in Congress and running as the

GOP nominee for president in 1996. U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who served more than a decade with Dole in the Senate and later surpassed Dole as the longest-serving GOP leader there, attended the event in Russell.

Kelly said in remarks in Dole’s hometown that Russell was “where his roots run deepest.”

“As we gather here today to come together to salute our state’s most favorite of favorite sons and the greatest of the Greatest Generation, we pause to reflect with immense gratitude on all that Bob Dole’s life meant to Kansas and to Kansans, to our nation and to the world,” Kelly said.

Dole became known as a congressional leader who could bridge partisan divides to pass legislation such as the landmark Americans with Disabilities Act aimed at preventing discrimination against the disabled. Moran attributed that ability to Dole’s ties to a small town, where, he said, people who disagree on politics still must mix in their daily lives.

“And if we fought among ourselves all the time, like sometimes national politics exhibits today, our towns would be a thing of the past,” Moran said, occasionally choking up during his remarks.

Dole will be buried in Arlington National Cemetery,.

Charlie Riedel / Associated Press Elizabeth Dole is escorted from her seat during a memorial service for her husband, former Sen. Bob Dole, in Russell, Kan.