RUSH H. LIMBAUGH DIES AT AGE OF 104; ATTORNEY LEFT GREAT LEGAL LEGACY

In 1902, on a small farm along the Little Muddy Creek in Bollinger County, a passion for the law first stirred in a 10-year-old boy.

A Daniel Webster oration the boy memorized had inspired him to become a lawyer. Fourteen years later, he set out on a legal career that spanned eight decades.

On Monday, the lifetime love affair between the man and the law ended.

Rush Hudson Limbaugh, one of Cape Girardeau's favorite sons and the nation's oldest practicing lawyer, died Monday afternoon at his home at 635 Sylvan Lane. He was 104.

Funeral arrangements are pending at Ford and Sons Mt. Auburn Chapel in Cape Girardeau.

Limbaugh's interest in law never waned and even in recent months, he headed into work about twice a week at the Limbaugh, Russell, Payne and Howard law firm that he founded 50 years ago in Cape Girardeau.

His love of the law now is a family legacy.

His son Rush H. Limbaugh Jr., who died in 1990, practiced law with him, along with another son, Stephen N. Limbaugh, who now is a federal judge in St. Louis.

Stephen practiced law with his father for 30 years before President Ronald Reagan appointed him to the federal bench.

"I remember him most of all as a tremendous inspiration as a lawyer and a teacher, not only from a professional point of view, but in our relationship as well," Stephen said Monday.

He always has been most impressed with his father's even temperament. Although he could be a "very fiery advocate" for his clients, the elder Limbaugh was able always to maintain his composure and craft solutions to legal quandaries, Stephen said.

Despite his own stellar legal career, Stephen said he "couldn't possibly ever measure up" to his father's stature.

The Limbaugh legal legacy extends to a third generation.

Four of his grandsons followed in his footsteps and pursued legal careers. John and Dan, sons of Rush's son, Manley, both are lawyers. Stephen's son, Stephen Jr., now is a Missouri Supreme Court judge, and Rush Jr.'s son, David, practices law at the firm his grandfather started.

David said his grandfather wouldn't want his family boasting about him. "But he was an extraordinary man, exemplary in every way, yet very humble," he said.

"He was a devoted Christian, a lawyer's lawyer, a community servant and a gentle and kind man whose family was the very center of his life."

David said the loss of his grandfather was "made easier with the knowledge that he led a rich and fulfilling life and that he is now residing in a happier, more peaceful place."

Rush Limbaugh's oratorical skills were passed down to his most famous progeny, Rush H. Limbaugh III, who hosts the nation's most-listened to radio talk show as well as a syndicated half-hour television show. He also is the author of two best-selling books.

By any measure, Rush Limbaugh's was a full life. His vita runs to several pages and reflects a commitment to excellence and the highest code of legal ethics.

He was known by his peers as a superb lawyer. More than that, he is remembered by those who knew him as an uncommon man, someone who combined public distinction with private character.

And so colleagues, when asked to name Limbaugh's achievements, are as likely to point to his work as a Sunday school teacher or scout leader as they are to his many career distinctions.

A former president of the Missouri Bar, charter member of the Missouri Bar Foundation and member of the American Bar Foundation, among other professional organizations, Limbaugh also was a member of the Cape Girardeau Board of Education, the Salvation Army Advisory Board and was chairman of the Cape Girardeau County Republican Committee.

He had been honored by the American Security Council, the All India Law Teachers Association, and the University of Missouri. He also was named "Mr. Cape Girardeau" by the Golden Eagles Marching Band of Southeast Missouri State University, and was an Honorary Citizen of Father Flanagan's Boy's Town.

In 1985, then-Missouri Gov. John Ashcroft declared May 17 "Rush H. Limbaugh Day" in the state in honor of the Cape Girardeau lawyer.

At a dinner that night, President Reagan remarked in a letter that Limbaugh's contributions "read like a virtual who's who of accomplishment." U.S. Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell called Limbaugh a "great credit to the legal profession."

Ashcroft, now a U.S. Senator from Missouri, said Monday that Limbaugh "set an example" for all who knew him.

"Rush Limbaugh exemplified the character, commitment and vision that has led this great state from the 1900s through the Great Depression, up until today," Ashcroft said. "He understood the promise of America because he embodied it."

One of the highlights of his career came in 1958, when the U.S. State Department invited Limbaugh to lecture in a newly liberated India before lawyers, judges and university students on the subject of constitutional government and the American judicial system.

The product of a one-room primary school in rural Bollinger County, Limbaugh attended Millersville High School before transferring to the Normal School in Cape Girardeau, where he paid most of his expenses doing carpenter work and farm labor.

At Normal School, he was elected to the Benton Literary Society, for which he won numerous oration and debating awards. In 1912, he was awarded the gold medal for participation in the Interstate Normal Oratorical Contest at Emporia, Kan.

He paid his way through college at the University of Missouri at Columbia by working on the university farm and various odd jobs -- firing furnaces, carpenter work, waiting tables, caring for animals and assisting a Methodist minister.

At college, his oratory skills won him more awards and helped to hone the skills he later would employ in the courtroom.

He argued more than 60 cases before the Missouri Supreme Court and many prominent civil cases. Limbaugh was a specialist in probate law and helped draft the 1955 Probate Code of Missouri.

Limbaugh also tried cases before the Interstate Commerce Commission, the U.S. Labor Board, the Internal Revenue Appellate Division and trial and appellate agencies of the U.S. Coast Guard.