Kit Bond obit

Kit Bond, former Missouri Governor and U.S. Senator, dies

 

He was not on the list.

Christopher S. “Kit” Bond has died.

The long-time Republican politician died Tuesday in St. Louis at age 86 – no cause of death has been released yet.

Bond was first elected State Auditor in 1970, then two years later he was elected governor of Missouri. He lost a re-election bid in 1976 but was elected governor again in 1980. In 1986 he was elected to the U.S. Senate and re-elected three more times by Missouri voters before choosing not to run again in 2010.

In a statement, Gov. Mike Kehoe calls Kit Bond a “favorite son” to Missouri and listed him as both a friend and mentor. He ordered U.S. and Missouri flags to fly at half-staff starting Tuesday and through the day Bond is buried. Funeral arrangements have not yet been announced.

A member of the Republican Party, he served as a U.S. Senator from 1987 to 2011, following two non-consecutive terms as the governor of Missouri from 1973 to 1977 and 1981 to 1985, and two years as State Auditor of Missouri from 1971 to 1973. His first election as governor ended a 28-year Democratic streak in that office.

Elected to the U.S. Senate in 1986, Bond defeated Democrat Harriett Woods by a margin of 53–47%. He was re-elected in 1992, 1998, and 2004. On January 8, 2009, he announced that he would not seek re-election to a fifth term in 2010, and was succeeded by fellow Republican Roy Blunt on January 3, 2011. Following his retirement from the Senate, Bond became a partner at Thompson Coburn

A sixth-generation Missourian, Bond was born in St. Louis on March 6, 1939, the son of Elizabeth (née Green) and Arthur D. Bond. His father was captain of the 1924 Missouri Tigers football team and a Rhodes Scholar. His maternal grandfather, A.P. Green, founded A.P. Green Industries, a fireclay manufacturer and a major employer for many years in Bond's hometown Mexico, Missouri. He was the benefactor and namesake of A. P. Green Chapel at the University of Missouri.

Bond graduated from Deerfield Academy in 1956 and then attended Princeton University and graduated in 1960 with an A.B. from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. He completed a 162-page senior thesis that year titled "Missouri Farm Organizations and the Problems of Agriculture". While a student at Princeton, Bond was a member of the Quadrangle Club. He graduated first in his class from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1963 with a J.D.

Bond served as a law clerk (1963–64) to the Honorable Elbert Tuttle, then Chief Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in Atlanta, Georgia. Bond practiced law (1964–67) at Covington & Burling in Washington, D.C.

Bond moved back to his hometown of Mexico, Missouri in the fall of 1967, and ran for Congress in 1968 in Missouri's 9th congressional district, the rural northeastern part of the state. He defeated Anthony Schroeder in the August Republican primary, 56% to 44%, winning 19 of the district's 23 counties.

In the November general election, Bond came close to defeating incumbent Democratic U.S. Congressman Bill Hungate, 48% to 52%. Bond won eight of the district's 23 counties. Out of Hungate's five re-election campaigns, that 1968 election against Bond was his worst performance.

State Attorney General John Danforth hired Bond as an Assistant Attorney General in 1969, where Bond led the office's Consumer Protection Division. In 1970, at the age of 31, Bond was elected Missouri State Auditor, defeating seventeen-year incumbent Haskell Holman. As auditor, Bond hired seven certified public accountants to the office, which increased the total from one.

 

United States Senator

from Missouri

In office

January 3, 1987 – January 3, 2011

Preceded by            Thomas Eagleton

Succeeded by            Roy Blunt

Chair of the Senate Small Business Committee

In office

January 20, 2001 – June 6, 2001

Preceded by            John Kerry

Succeeded by            John Kerry

In office

January 4, 1995 – January 3, 2001

Preceded by            Dale Bumpers

Succeeded by            John Kerry

47th and 49th Governor of Missouri

In office

January 12, 1981 – January 14, 1985

Lieutenant            Ken Rothman

Preceded by            Joseph P. Teasdale

Succeeded by            John Ashcroft

In office

January 8, 1973 – January 10, 1977

Lieutenant            Bill Phelps

Preceded by            Warren E. Hearnes

Succeeded by            Joseph Teasdale

28th Auditor of Missouri

In office

January 11, 1971 – January 8, 1973

Governor            Warren Hearnes

Preceded by            Haskell Holman

Succeeded by            John Ashcroft