Dale Bumpers did his father proud.
Bumpers, who died last week at the age of 90, famously told the story of how his father encouraged public service, talking politics at the supper table with his family and taking his sons to see Franklin Roosevelt.
The president was on a 1938 campaign swing through Arkansas on behalf of Hattie Caraway's historic run for the U.S. Senate and Dale noticed Roosevelt's needing to be helped by his son.
Later, on the ride home, Dale's father explained.
"Now boys, let me tell you something. Franklin Roosevelt had polio when he was 39 years old and he can't walk. He has 12 pounds of steel braces on his legs.
"If Franklin Roosevelt can't even walk and has to carry 12 pounds of steel on his legs, you boys have good minds and good bodies and there is no reason why you can't be president."
Dale Bumpers, a life-long Democrat, may never have been president; but he led a life of significant public service that included an historic defense of President Bill Clinton in his impeachment trial before the U.S. Senate.
Clinton called Bumpers, his long-time friend and advisor, out of retirement to give the closing argument in the trial, which ended in acquittal.
Bumpers was just weeks out of the Senate, where he served for 24 years, growing famous for his oratorical skill and his steady defense of the U.S. Constitution that he revered.
He seriously considered a run for the White House but backed away in both 1980 and 1984.
The impeachment speech may be Bumpers' most-remembered role nationally, but it was hardly all that should be recalled about a career that began in tiny Charleston, Ark.
It was there where a young Bumpers, the town's only lawyer, guided Charleston public schools to integrate fully in 1954. The action came in response to the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education, but Bumpers, who considered Charleston's integration to be "probably the most important thing I did in my whole life," believed it was the right thing to do.
Charleston was the first community in the former Confederacy to integrate its public schools. Had that been Bumpers' only public service, it would have been quite a contribution to this state's history.
But Bumpers eventually followed his father's desire to see his sons be active in politics.
Like his father, who served as a state legislator, Bumpers first tried for a seat in the state House of Representatives. He lost that 1962 race and went back to practicing law and running a hardware store in Charleston.
Then came 1970, when this relatively unknown lawyer ran for governor and began building a political resume that included the nickname "giant killer."
In the Democratic primary, he defeated former Gov. Orval Faubus, who was attempting a comeback. And, in the general election, he took down the incumbent, Gov. Winthrop Rockefeller, the state's first Republican governor since Reconstruction.
Rockefeller hardly expected to be denied a third term and memorably tagged the Charleston lawyer during the campaign as a man with "one speech, a shoeshine and a smile."
In 1974, after two two-year terms as governor and a long list of notable accomplishments, Bumpers took on veteran U.S. Sen. William Fulbright and won.
Years later, in 1998, long after Bumpers had settled into his role in the U.S. Senate, a survey of historians and political experts in Arkansas ranked Bumpers as the state's best governor of the 20th Century.
Again, had his gubernatorial service been his only accomplishment, Bumpers' place in Arkansas history would have been assured.
But his public service didn't end there. It continued in the Senate.
In the days since his death, even former foes have remembered his remarkable service. Both Gov. Asa Hutchinson and former Gov. Mike Huckabee, Republicans who unsuccessfully challenged Bumpers for the seat, talked of getting schooled -- and thrashed -- by this veteran campaigner and public servant.
In news accounts and on social media, Arkansans from many walks of life have praised the late senator as larger than life, a man who left a great legacy and earned the respect of the public he served.
He was certainly a political "giant killer" but he was also a giant in Arkansas politics, just as his father imagined he could be.
Commentary on 01/06/2016