President Truman referred to his return to Missouri as “being promoted to private life.” Senator Christopher Bond is experiencing the same promotion.
Bond’s forty-year office-holding career has taken him through eight statewide elections, of which he won seven. He thinks his career in public service is rooted in family history–his great-great grandfather was a state senator from Ste Genevieve County when Missouri became a state. Other ancestors have held public office, too.
He points to numerous accomplishments in Jefferson City as well as in Washington, but says nothing is as far-reaching as Parents as Teachers, an idea born of a study of the failures of Head Start that pointed to lack of parental involvement. Parents as Teachers began in Missouri as a pilot project and now is nationwide.
Bond will be associated with a Washington law firm but hopes to spend much of his time on economic development work for Missouri.