What You Didn't Know About Sen. Robert Byrd
By Jill Konieczko
Posted 11/10/06
- Democrat Robert Byrd of West Virginia, the Senate's longest-serving member, won a record ninth six-year term less than two weeks before his 89th birthday. He won the support of more than 6 in 10 voters statewide throughout West Virginia, crossing age, gender, income, religious, and geographic lines. Since his election in 1952 to the House of Representatives and his 1958 election to the Senate, Byrd has championed the Appalachian highway system, education, mine safety, and clean coal technology.
- Byrd this year lost his wife of 68 years, Erma Ora James, with whom he had two daughters, Mona Carole and Marjorie Ellen.
- Byrd served three terms as a member of the House before joining the Senate in 1958. He is the only U.S. senator to have been elected to nine terms. He has held more leadership positions than any other senator, and he has seen 11 presidents take office during his time in Congress.
- His years in public service changed him from a parochial conservative who opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and called the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. a ''rabble rouser'' to a strong advocate of the proposed equal rights amendment to the Constitution.
- His life's story – from impoverished beginnings to his lengthy career representing West Virginia in the House and Senate – was the focus of a 2002 documentary, The Soul of the Senate, coproduced by the West Virginia Humanities Council.
- Byrd carries a well-worn, passport-size copy of the Constitution in his left breast pocket at all times.
- In June 2005, at the launch of his autobiography – Robert C. Byrd: Child of the Appalachian Coalfields – Byrd said the story of his life is also the state's story. In truth, it is West Virginia history – the coalfields of southern West Virginia, the authoritarian rule of the mining communities by the coal companies, the grinding poverty of the Great Depression," he said.
- In 1979, he was named the most influential man of the Senate in a poll conducted by U.S. News.
- "West Virginia believes in God almighty, Sears Roebuck, Carter's Little Liver Pills, and Robert C. Byrd" is his oft-repeated phrase.
- An honorary member of the Country Music Association, he once recorded a fiddle album and guest-starred on the variety program Hee Haw.
Sources:
Sen. Robert Byrd (W.Va)
The Complete Marquis Who's Who Biographical Directory
Associated Press
The Los Angeles Times
The New York Times
The Washington Post
The Times West Virginian