RUSH H. LIMBAUGH -- A CENTURY OF SERVICE

Rush H. Limbaugh, 1891-1996

Throughout his distinguished career, Limbaugh wanted to be known as an honest lawyer who believed in justice.

*See today's editorial, page 10A.

Funeral arrangements

Visitation: Today 4-8 p.m. at Ford and Sons Mt. Auburn Chapel

Funeral service: Thursday, 2 p.m. Centenary United Methodist Church. Burial in Lorimier Cemetery

Sept. 27, 1891: Rush Hudson Limbaugh born in the farm home of his parents, Joseph Headley and Susan Frances Presnell Limbaugh, near Sedgewickville, the youngest of eight children.

Sept. 27, 1897: Started classes in one-room school a mile from his farm home. He was promoted from the first to the third grade.

1904: Visited the St. Louis Worlds Fair and saw new treats like ice cream cones and hot dogs.

Jan. 1, 1906 through April 1907: Attended Millersville High School. While there, began participating in debate and elocution.

Sept. 10, 1907 to June 1, 1912 (except for 1908-1909): Attended Southeast Missouri State Normal School. Paid most of his expenses by doing carpentry work and working on a farm. Won many oratorical contests.

Sept. 1908 to April 1909: Taught in one-room Lone Grove School in Bollinger County.

Oct. 1908: Decided to become a lawyer.

1912-16: Attended University of Missouri-Columbia. Paid principal part of expenses by doing work on the university farm, firing furnaces, building construction, waiting tables, caring for animals, assisting a Methodist minister and grading papers.

Aug. 29, 1914: Married Bee Seabaugh. She died Sept. 2, 1977.

1914: Entered Law school at the University of Missouri. After two years of law school, he skipped the third year, passed the Missouri Bar Examination and was admitted to practice law July 3, 1916.

Sept. 1916: Open a law office in Cape Girardeau.

1916-20: Served as Boy Scouts commissioner, superintending three troops in Cape Girardeau.

June 1917 to May 1919: City attorney of Cape Girardeau.

1921-65: General counsel for Cape Girardeau State Normal School, now Southeast Missouri State University.

1922-30: Special or general counsel for the city of Cape Girardeau during a time of extraordinary expansion and development.

1928-38: Chairman of Republican County Committee of Cape Girardeau County.

1929-30: President of Cape Girardeau County Bar Association.

1929-30, 1968-72: Chairman of administrative board of Centenary United Methodist Church. Board member since 1917. Sunday School teacher, 1910-54.

May 18 to June 12, 1931: Participated in the prosecution of the Missouri state treasurer in Jefferson City, the first impeachment trial in state history.

1931-32: First president of Southeast Missouri Area Council for Boy Scouts.

1931-32: Member of the Missouri House of Representatives. Supported creation of Missouri State Highway Patrol and consolidation of public school districts in Missouri.

1932-67: General counsel of Colonial Federal Savings and Loan Association.

1934-38: Chairman of Tenth Congressional District Republican Committee of Missouri.

1935-63: Board of trustees member and counsel for Southeast Missouri Hospital.

1935: Appointed special commissioner of the Missouri Court of Appeals, eastern district, in St. Louis, to hear the evidence and report his findings and conclusions of law to determine who was the mother of a child, setting precedence in Missouri adoption cases.

1936: Delegate to Republican National Convention in Cleveland.

1940-48: Special counsel for Wayne County when the United States condemned and appropriated the site of the county seat and a large body of the county's most fertile land as part of the Wappapello Flood Control project on the St. Francis River.

1942-46: Missouri counsel for War Emergency Pipelines and its acquisition of easements across Southeast Missouri and Southern Illinois. Through these pipelines gasoline was transported from Texas and Louisiana to the East Coast as a war measure.

Oct. 5, 1943 to April 8, 1948: Cape Girardeau Board of Education for four years.

1951: Appointed special commissioner of the Missouri Supreme Court to hear evidence and report his findings of fact and conclusions of law in an antitrust case.

1953-55: Served with Leslie A. Welch, judge of the probate court of Jackson County, and Hiram Leasar, law professor, as the advisory committee in drafting the 1955 Probate Code of Missouri.

1954-55: Chairman of real property, probate and trust law section, American Bar Association.

1955-56: President of Missouri Bar.

1956-59: President of State Historical Society of Missouri

1958: Representative of the State Department on a six-week lecture tour for lawyers, judges and university students in India, lecturing on constitutional government and the administration of justice in the United States.

1960: Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers, 1989 recipient of annual award conferred by Missouri Fellows for distinguished service in the law.

1960-61 and 1965: Chairman of special committee on Bill of Rights, American Bar Association.

1966-1974: Appointed to Missouri Commission on Human Rights by Gov. Warren E. Hearnes.

1967: Served as Missouri counsel for Procter and Gamble. Assisted in acquiring title to a large body of land in Cape Girardeau County on which they company erected and operates a large industrial plant.

1974: Named a Paul Harris Fellow of the Rotary International Foundation.

Oct. 1983: Received the first Friend of the University Award at Southeast Missouri State University.

1987: Lectured on the framing of the Constitution as part of the document's bicentennial.

1987: Recipient of Scouting's Silver Beaver Award.

1989: First recipient of an award established by the Cape Girardeau Chamber of Commerce to recognize an area business person who has expended exceptional effort on behalf of the community for a sustained period of time. The award is the "Rush H. Limbaugh Award."

Nov. 21, 1995: Received the State Historical Society's Distinguished Service Award. He joined the society in 1929 and served the board as a permanent trustee.

April 8, 1996: Rush H. Limbaugh dies.