STATEMENT ON THE DEATH OF SEN. PAUL SIMON, DANA ALUMNUS

Dana College was saddened to hear of the death of former Senator Paul Simon on Tuesday from complications arising from cardiac surgery. Simon was a Dana alumnus, former member of the Dana College Board of Regents and a great supporter of Dana College around the country.

“No alumnus was more loyal than Paul Simon,” said Dana College President Myrvin Christopherson. “Paul left Dana in 1948 without a degree to become the youngest newspaper publisher in the United States. He returned almost every year at Homecoming to sing in the reunion choir and attend the Dana football game.”

Simon served on the guiding body of the college, the Dana College Board of Regents from 1978-81 and 1985-96. He was to rejoin the board on January 1. He was named Distinguished Alumnus in 1979. He also gave generously to the college. After his run for the U.S. presidency in 1988, Simon donated funds left over from his campaign to establish a fund to allow Dana students to travel overseas. Students pay back money from the fund at no interest, allowing the fund to continue indefinitely. He was also the primary planner and fund raiser for an international conference held at Dana on the rescue of Danish Jews during World War II.

“Paul believed in America, but he also believed in world peace and strived for harmony among all people,” Christopherson said. “He challenged his alma mater to be a leader in diversity and encouraged world travel by college students.”

In his time as Illinois’s senior senator, Simon was a leading voice for supporting educational systems, fiscal responsibility and limiting violence on television. Enacted legislation that he wrote includes the National Literacy Act, the School-to-Work Opportunities Act, the Job Training Partnership Act amendments and the 1994 reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. He was the leading Senate champion of the direct college loan program and chief Democratic sponsor of the balanced budget amendment.

Before his national career began, Simon attended Dana College and then became the nation’s youngest editor-publisher when he joined the Troy Tribune in Troy, Ill. He used his forum to expose syndicate gambling connections and at age 22 was called as a key witness to testify before the U.S. Senate’s Crime Investigating Committee. He was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1974 and served until he upset three-term incumbent Charles Percy to win election to the U.S. Senate. Simon served in the Senate until his retirement in 1997, even while seeking the Democratic nomination for president in 1988.

Simon was most recently a professor at Southern Illinois University, where he taught classes in political science, history and journalism. He was also founder and director of the Public Policy Institute at SIU’s Carbondale, Ill., campus. Simon held more than 55 honorary degrees and had written 21 books. He was most recently at Dana for the college’s Homecoming celebration in October, where he did a free book signing of his most recent works, Our Culture of Pandering from SIU Press and Healing American Values and Vision from Orbis Books.

Dana College is a place where students make things happen — in their own lives and in the lives of others. Through a highly supportive faculty and campus community, Dana students develop interpersonal skills, leadership abilities, and other important values and knowledge as they make choices about their future. Dana’s outstanding academic programs in business, education and social work, among others, ensure that students have the knowledge, skills and experience necessary to pursue challenging careers or placement in graduate school.

Dana College is a private, liberal arts institution in Blair, Neb. To learn more, visit www.dana.edu.

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For more information contact:

Sarah Cavanah
Communications Coordinator
Dana College
(402) 426-7216
scavanah@fs1.dana.edu