Thank You For Your Service Senator Bob Dole

3 min readDec 5, 2021

I'm sorry to read about former Kansas Senator Bob Dole's passing due to Stage IV lung cancer. My Bob Dole story is really my President Reagan story that became a Nancy Landon Kassebaum Baker story.

When I was a little girl, I loved President Reagan. I was 10 when he was elected the first time. I think I felt like he was a stand-in grandpa since mine was KIA Korea 1950. I wrote him so many letters, and sent him Hallmark cards - especially ones with jelly beans on them since he loved jelly beans.

I wrote him a long letter in January 1981 inviting him to Kansas, how he and Nancy could stay at our house, my mom would take Nancy shopping at Peagus, my step-father and I would take the president fishing and we'd have pork chops and scalloped potatoes for dinner. I concluded by inviting them to go to the State Fair with me. Two months later he was shot. I received a nice letter from his Chief of Staff. Five months later my mom was at work and got a phone call from our Senator Nancy Landon Kassebaum Baker.

President Reagan forwarded my invitation to she and Sen Bob Dole. Nancy asked my mom if she could take me to the Kansas State fair and she did. We made the front page of The Hutch News! We stayed in touch and I visited her at the Capitol in Topeka and she sent me a high school graduation gift seven years later.

When Senator Dole announced he would run for president in 1995, Nancy ran into me and yelled "Becca!" like we were long lost friends. She and I, along with Senator Dole had a photo taken together that is back in Kansas. We hugged and she said, "We’re just a couple of Dole cheerleaders!"