Smith Impressed Many With Her Skills {former Rep. Virginia Smith, R-NE, Dead at 94}

Grand Island, NE, Independent ^ | 01-25-06 | Bockoven, Mike

[Theodore R.]

Smith impressed many with her skills

By Mike Bockoven michael.bockoven@theindependent.com

For the people who knew and worked with Virginia Smith, there were three common themes -- they all met her in person, they all admired her work as Third District Representative, and they all found her fantastic. "She was one lady you never forgot," Margaret Landis, a former Hall County Supervisor who worked with Smith on getting water out to the Capital Heights area, said. "We've had some good people follow her, but I guarantee they weren't her. She was a dynamic lady."

Smith died Monday at the age of 94, and left behind not just constituents in the area, but friends as well. In 1984, Smith was named The Independent Woman of the Year.

Aileen Bish, whose husband Milan served as Smith's administrative assistant, remembered Smith as someone deeply loyal to her friends.

On election nights, for example, she would return to her native Chapell where election results weren't readily available.

"Milan would have to stand outside with a radio to hear the results," Bish said. "It was more important for her to be with her friends than to have any sort of luxuries, even on that night."

Bish, as many others who are mourning Smith on Tuesday, remembered her amazing memory for names and faces and propensity for getting out in the third district and addressing issues.

Irene Abernethy, who campaigned for Smith, said the two met when Smith knocked on her front door and asked her to chair her campaign in Hall County.

"She knocked on my door, if you can believe it," Abernethy said. "I had never met her and she asked me to be her chairman. I didn't need that, but she talked me into it."

Abernethy said she also remembers working hard on her campaign over the next several months, as did "my husband and my two children." Her brand of representation inspired a lot of loyalty, Abernethy said. She also remembers during her first campaign, the National Republican Party sent a 22-year-old student named Karl Rove to work on Smith's campaign, which she won by a narrow margin.

The faith her friends put in Smith was well founded in terms of what she did for the area. She had an active role in getting emergency federal aid for Grand Island after the 1980 tornados, and helping the Grand Island deal with the emerging RDX plume when it threatened the Capital Heights area.

She was also the first woman to ever represent Nebraska's Third District in the U.S. House of Representatives. Doris Mason, who also campaigned for Smith, said she was effective as a legislator in large part because of her memory that so endeared her to her constituents.

"She was a fantastic lady and she always remembered your name," she said. "She seemed to get things done during her tenure. You could tell."

Marlan Ferguson, president of the Grand Island Area Economic Development Council, worked with Smith when he was the City Administrator in Chapell. He said her passion for rural affairs was a defining characteristic in her career, and her constituents noticed.

"She grew up in the Chapel area and she was dedicated to rural areas," he said. "She was a good representative for us not just for the third district but for Nebraska."

Bob Lowry, a member of the Hall County Republican Party who lives in Cairo, agreed. Aside from Smith knowing who everyone is and "working them into the speech" if she could, she worked hard to educate herself about all facets of issues important to her constituents.

And if there was a fight, she wasn't one to back down.

"She worked hard and did a lot for Nebraska, that's for sure," he said. "She was a very good legislature. She was for agriculture all the way and she wasn't shy about it. If there was an issue that came up, she was on top of it. She looked out for the farmer."

Be it rural issues or city ones, it was the personal touch that Smith gave to her job that will be remembered by many. Landis said she was a special politician and a "fantastic" person who represented the people of the third District in a meaningful and honorable way.

"For someone from Nebraska to have power like that is something special," she said. "She did it because she was such a dynamic lady. She was a lady you never forgot."

[Theodore R.]

Miss Smith represented the district that Tom Osborne is vacating to seek the Republican gubernatorial nomination this year. For a time she was virtually the only reliable conservative holding office in "conservative" NE.