The IndyStar.com site is reporting: "Former Indiana Gov. Robert D. Orr, the consummate gentleman and Indiana's elder statesman, died unexpectedly Wednesday following outpatient kidney surgery, former aides and associates said. Orr, who overhauled the state's education system and ended political party control of motor vehicle licensing, died at Indiana University Medical Center at 9:17 p.m., said Mark Lubbers, his former press secretary. * * * "He was a tremendous mentor for a young person," recalled John Hammond. "At the time he ran for his second term, he probably had one of the youngest staffs in the country. I'd get calls at midnight and 1 in the morning. He wore all of us out, and we were 40 years his junior." Much more here.
I am very proud to add that I am one of the many who worked for Governor Orr.
Indiana Chief Justice Randall Shepard issued this statement this morning:
I feel a weighty sadness about losing such a friend, but somehow it feels wrong to weep over a life so well lived.Chief Justice Shepard, formerly of Evansville, is a long-time friend of the late Gov. Orr. Both Chief Justice Shepard and Associate Justice Brent Dickson were appointed to the Supreme Court by Gov. Orr. Chief Justice Shepard was appointed to the Court in 1985 and Justice Dickson was appointed in 1986.Bob Orr believed in Indiana, and his vision about what Indiana needed for its future had been vindicated over and over. He thought the state needed a great leap forward in education, and pressed us to confront the challenge of a globalizing economy. It’s hard to imagine where Indiana would be today if he hadn’t spurred the state into action on both fronts.
He also transformed the individual lives of a great many people, including me, by being the very model of a decent servant of others and by giving us opportunities in life we’d never dreamed we would have. As I go further along in life, my list of heroes gets shorter, but Bob Orr has always been one of them.
Posted by Marcia Oddi at March 11, 2004 10:21 AM