‘Heaven will look a lot like Kansas’: Bob Dole makes final homecoming to Russell

The late U.S. Sen. Bob Dole made his final homecoming to Russell on Saturday, where mourners gathered in St. Mary Queen of Angels Catholic Church to pay their respects to a man whose Kansas roots ran as deep as the prairie grass.

Dole, who died on Dec. 5 at the age of 98, wrote in his farewell letter to the American people that Kansas was his idea of paradise.

“I also confess that I’m a bit curious to learn if I’m correct in thinking that Heaven will look a lot like Kansas,” Dole wrote.

Hundreds turned out for the memorial service, including Dole’s wife of 46 years, Elizabeth, and their daughter, Robin. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and his wife, Elaine Chao, were in attendance, as well as U.S. Senate Chaplain Barry Black.

In her remarks, Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly lauded the Republican statesman, who she called “our state’s most favored of favorite sons, the greatest of the Greatest Generation.”

“It’s hard to imagine a Kansas without Bob Dole, and I am not sure I want to,” Kelly said. “If the twentieth century was the American Century, Bob Dole was the personification of it.”

Dole’s first job was delivering newspapers in Russell. He would go on to have many more.

After surviving Nazi fire on an Italian hillside, Dole rose to the peak of political power and influence as Senate majority leader and the 1996 Republican presidential nominee. Even after losing out on the presidency, Dole remained a fixture in American pop culture.

“As a politician, he fought fiercely as a partisan. But as a public servant, he placed country above party,” Kelly said. “Although he fought hard to win elections for his team, he fought even harder to solve problems by reaching across the aisle.”

Pat Roberts, a retired longtime senator from Kansas, recalled that in the last decade of Dole’s life, the two of them ended every conversation by saying they loved each other.

Fighting back tears during his remarks, Sen. Jerry Moran expressed sincere admiration for his late friend and mentor.

“Bob Dole was the first United States senator I ever met . . . the first senator I ever had a chance to shake a hand with,” Moran said. “And I have been in awe of Bob Dole for 52 years since then.”

He extolled Dole’s military service and perseverance as he reclaimed his life after Nazi fire ripped into his right shoulder and left him partially paralyzed.

“His dreams were crippled. All of us grow up with dreams and his were shattered on one day,” Moran said.

But that hardship only fueled Dole’s insatiable desire to serve, he said.

“He lived with these disabilities, and rather than asking for help, he decided to commit his life to offering help,” Moran said. “His disabilities developed his character, developed an empathy for other people, and he turned his adversities into public service.”

After the service, Dole’s body is to be transported to Topeka to lie in repose in the Kansas State Capitol rotunda. He will then be flown back to the nation’s capital for burial in Arlington National Cemetery.

Kansas’ preeminent statesman may not be laid to rest in the Sunflower State, but Kelly said Dole never forgot where he came from.

“Maybe it’s the broad horizons and big skies of the windswept prairie. Maybe it’s the can-do spirit, resiliency, and ingenuity of Kansans. But Kansas is the place that inspired Dole to believe the best tomorrows were always yet to be,” Kelly said.

This story was originally published December 11, 2021 at 2:09 PM.