Tony Thurmond: “the Senate is a place of great camaraderie and congeniality, and over the past four decades, I have been fortunate to…”

“the Senate is a place of great camaraderie and congeniality, and over the past four decades, I have been fortunate to have made a number of very good friends here. Regrettably, I rise today to memorialize one of them, Mrs. Lorna Simpson. Lorna is known to all of us as the mother of our colleague, Senator Al Simpson, the dedicated and gregarious senior Senator from Wyoming. While most Members probably had the opportunity to meet this kind and warm woman, few are fortunate to have known her as well as I. I first came to know Lorna in 1962 when her husband was elected to the U.S. Senate and he moved into an office near mine. The Simpsons quickly became my close friends and I very much enjoyed spending time with Al and Lorna. While Lorna was a consummate entertainer, she was a woman who was civically active and took a strong role in supporting her husband's business enterprises. Every community in which the Simpsons lived benefited from the efforts of Lorna as she contributed her time and efforts to numerous causes including the Red Cross and programs that restored various historic sites. During World War II, Lorna contributed to the war effort by chairing Cody Wyoming's black and scrap metal committees and even served as the acting editor of the local paper.”