[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 1]
[House]
[Pages 7-8]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




      MOMENT OF SILENCE IN HONOR OF THE LATE SENATOR DALE BUMPERS

  (Mr. HILL asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. HILL. Mr. Speaker, today our Arkansas delegation rises to pay 
tribute to a dedicated public servant, an exceptional orator, and a 
distinguished son of Arkansas.
  Former Arkansas Governor and four-term United States Senator Dale 
Leon Bumpers passed away on Friday, January 1, at the age of 90.
  Hailing from the small town of Charleston, Arkansas, Senator Bumpers 
graduated from the University of Arkansas with a degree in political 
science and followed that with service in the United States Marine 
Corps during World War II.
  After earning his law degree from Northwestern University, Bumpers 
and his wife, Betty, returned to their hometown of Charleston, where he 
practiced law. In the wake of the 1954 Supreme Court decision on Brown 
v. Board of Education, Bumpers advised the Charleston School Board to 
immediately desegregate its school system. Listed as his proudest 
achievement, the Charleston School District was the first school 
district in the former Confederacy to desegregate.
  Nicknamed by The New York Times as the ``giant killer,'' Senator 
Bumpers emerged as a dark horse candidate to defeat long-time Governor 
Orval Faubus in 1970. In his two terms as Governor, he continued and 
expanded Governor Rockefeller's era of expansive governmental reform.
  In 1974, he defeated five-term U.S. Senator J. William Fulbright in 
the Democratic primary with 65 percent of the vote to win the Senate 
seat and serve for 24 years.
  When I was a young Senate staffer, it was a pleasure to work with 
Senator Bumpers and my Second District predecessor, Congressman Ed 
Bethune, on the completion of the landmark Arkansas Wilderness Act of 
1984.
  Mr. Speaker, on Sunday, January 10, Dale Bumpers will be laid to 
rest.
  Those of us in the delegation, as we prepare to make our final good-
byes, would ask for a moment of silence to honor this Arkansas leader, 
public servant, and elder statesman.

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