Chester Twp. Councilman Shares Memories Of 2005 Bob Dole Meeting

CHESTER, NJ — He was a decorated World War II veteran from Kansas who touched many lives before he died at 98 this past Sunday.

One of those lives is Chester Township Councilman Mike Inganamort, who posted a tribute after the announcement was made about former Republican U.S. Senator Bob Dole’s death on Sunday. Dole's wife Elizabeth announced on Twitter that he had passed away in his sleep.

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Inganamort told Patch he had the chance to meet Dole in October 2005, when Dole spoke at American University, where Inganamort was president of the American University College Republicans.

Eulogizing Dole in his post to Facebook followers, he said Dole was for many the “first personification of what an American hero looks like,” saying Dole was “courageous, honorable, funny—a man for the ages.”

“The Greatest Generation has lost one of its last remaining giants,” he said.

A Republican leader in the Senate between 1969 to 1996, Dole had challenged President Bill Clinton for his seat in 1996 among his four attempts for the Presidency, but lost, though Clinton gave him the Presidential Medal of Freedom the following year.

RELATED: Bob Dole, Decorated World War II Vet And GOP Stalwart, Dies At 98

Inganamort said he asked Dole during the event, how he believed the country would have differed had he prevailed in that Presidential election.

Describing Dole as a “longtime champion of Kosovo’s independence,” Inganamort said Dole replied that he would have “made some of the same calls” as Clinton had on the Kosovo crisis, but said he would have focused more - had he been elected - on education reform.

“He [Dole] felt that it was a missed opportunity to have not raised the standard of education in the 1990s, which is likely why the issue took such prominence in 2000,” Inganamort said.

Inganamort told Patch he additionally had the opportunity to take part in weekly chats that Dole’s wife Elizabeth, then serving as a U.S. Senator for North Carolina, hosted, when he was an intern with the House of Representatives.

Elizabeth Dole he said, offered “a lot of good career advice” weekly to the interns during the off-the-record chats, where she also discussed with them what she was working on.

“Bob and Elizabeth Dole’s love of country motivated them to engage the next generation in a variety of unique ways, to spark the civic spirit in as many young people as they could,” Inganamort said. “As has been said in a lot of the tributes over the past day, they set an extraordinary example and we have a long way to go to live up to it.”

Patch reporting about Bob Dole contributed by Beth Dalbey

Questions or comments about this story? Have a news tip? Contact me at: jennifer.miller@patch.com.