Carnahan's death unites Missourians

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- For many, talk of the events of Oct. 16, 2000, still brings an onrush of emotion. That was the day when for the only time in living memory, Missouri lost a sitting governor.

While the recent tragedies in New York and Washington will carry a far more lasting and significant impact, the death a year ago of Gov. Mel Carnahan was a shocking, though unifying, event for Missourians.

When she first heard the governor's plane had gone down in rural Jefferson County, Bekki Cook of Cape Girar-deau, Missouri's secretary of state at the time, says her reaction was "incomprehensible sadness."

"It still is," Cook said.

As a statewide officeholder, Cook was among those who had to sign the document turning over power to Lt. Gov. Roger Wilson. Though devastated, Cook says she and the others knew it was what they had to do.

"The gravity of it that night was very real for all of us there," Cook said.

Joe Driskill, the director of the Department of Economic Development under both Carnahan and Gov. Bob Holden, was also on hand in the early morning hours of Oct. 17 when Wilson took over.

Driskill, a former state representative from Poplar Bluff, Mo., was sitting in his kitchen when a friend from Southeast Missouri called him with the news Carnahan's plane went down, killing the governor, his son and pilot Randy Carnahan, and senior aide Chris Sifford.

"I thought there is no way in the world that could be true," Driskill said. "I will never forget it."

Driskill worked for Carnahan's 1980 campaign for state treasurer and joined his official staff when Carnahan won the office. Shortly after becoming governor in 1993, Carnahan appointed Driskill to his current post. Driskill says Carnahan inspired him to a career in public service.

"He very much molded my view of the world and kept me interested, as he did with so many other people around the state," Driskill said.

Carnahan legacy

Carnahan's legacy is one of bringing honor to public service, Driskill says.

"I think he brought the discussion of public policy and the public interest to a very high plane," Driskill said. "He appealed to all of us to recognize that our country, government and state are only as good as all of us are willing to make it."

Senate President Pro Tem Peter Kinder, R-Cape Girar-deau, says that just as the recent terrorist attacks brought the nation together, the governor's death did so for Missourians to an extent Kinder hadn't before experienced. More than 10,000 mourners -- including then-President Clinton and Vice President Gore -- attended the governor's funeral on the Capitol grounds in what Kinder calls "an unforgettable and awe-inspiring event."

But Kinder says the Carnahan's legacy is twofold.

"The legacy, you might say, is one of honorable public service," Kinder said. "But it is also a legacy of spending us into the trouble we are in."

Kinder says even Democrats in the Capitol privately acknowledge that new -- and costly -- government programs championed by Carnahan have helped put the state in its current financial bind.

"We are going to be some years dealing with that legacy," Kinder said.

National impact

The impact of Carnahan's death also shaped the national political scene, Kinder says, placing widowed Jean Carnahan in the U.S. Senate while leaving the man her husband defeated from the grave, Republican John Ashcroft, temporarily without a job. That put Ashcroft in line to take President Bush's appointment as U.S. attorney general.

"It is remarkable how things work out sometime," Kinder said.

Former Missouri first lady Betty Hearnes of Charleston, Mo., says Jean Carnahan has handled the tragedy remarkably well, despite the circumstances.

"It has not been easy for her because she was not allowed to grieve in private," Hearnes said. "She had to grieve in public and move on."

Hearnes feared getting similar news when her husband, Warren Hearnes, was governor from 1965-73.

"I lived eight years hoping never to hear that the governor's plane was down," Hearnes said. "I know how devastating that would be."

Though Hearnes did so under much better circumstances with her husband still alive and well, she can relate to the difficulty Carnahan has faced in being a former first lady trying to carve out a political career in her own right. Hearnes served in the state House of Representatives from 1979-89.

"I do think we can judge her on her own merits," Hearnes said. "She doesn't have to stand in anyone's shadow."

mpowers@semissourian.com

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