Souther Illinoisan - Durbin: Kenny Gray Helped Southern Illinois

Op-Ed

By Dick Durbin

The first time I ever saw him, I was a college kid standing in a crowd around a football field in southeastern Illinois.

We heard his helicopter coming and when it hovered over the field, it blew up a dust storm around us. When the dust settled and the hatch opened, he stepped out to an applauding crowd.

As he waved, I saw that his dress shirt had lace on the cuffs and the lining of his white suit coat was bright purple.

There he was.

Congressman Kenny Gray.

A Southern Illinois original.

Everybody remembers he wore flashy suits. He remembered and retold every joke Red Skelton ever wrote. His cars were Cadillacs of every color and his political tales spanned decades.

But what we should never forget is that at a moment in history when Southern Illinois was struggling economically; when SIU Carbondale was planting its roots as a great university; when efforts to rebuild Rend Lake were hotly debated; when the routes of the new interstate highways decided which towns would be winners; when federal prisons and post offices were being fought over; Kenny Gray delivered for Southern Illinois.

And he never apologized for fighting for every federal dollar he could bring home. His critics called it pork barrel. Kenny Gray called it jobs.

I was honored to serve with him in the House and realized when the Speaker called him to preside over the House it was a recognition of his personal knowledge of the rules of that body. The only problem he ran into was when he wore a loud sport coat when he presided. When he stood there in a bright orange jacket in front of the American flag, thousands of C-SPAN viewers across America rushed to their TV sets to adjust the color.

With his passing, we celebrate the contributions of a Congressman who left his mark on our state and lived larger than life. Loretta and I join in extending our sympathies to Toedy and the Gray family.

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