Jim Kolbe: “I did want to take just a moment or two to pay tribute to, as the gentleman from Texas said, a good friend of ours, a…”

“I did want to take just a moment or two to pay tribute to, as the gentleman from Texas said, a good friend of ours, a loyal employee of this House of Representatives, somebody who served this House extraordinarily well for so many years, Ron Lasch. It was just a little over 41 years ago that Ron Lasch came to the House of Representatives as a young page. I know, because I was also here at that time as a page. I was a page over in the U.S. Senate at that time when Ron came under Mr. Whitnall's sponsorship to the House of Representatives. Along with Don Anderson, who, of course, went on to become the Clerk of the House of Representatives, we all graduated in 1960 from the page school. Most of us went on with our lives and did other things, went away to college and began families, went into the service, but Ron Lasch, along with Don Anderson, stayed here in the House of Representatives. I mention that because he has given an extraordinarily large part of his life and his service to the House of Representatives.”