Ed Whitfield: “Bill Emerson truly was a remarkable man. I had the opportunity to come to know him just since 1994 when he became…”

“Bill Emerson truly was a remarkable man. I had the opportunity to come to know him just since 1994 when he became involved in my race for the U.S. Congress. My district is right across the river from his. And he came to my district on one occasion to help out my constituents in a matter that they were concerned about. A couple of weeks ago I was driving through my rural district of western Kentucky. I came across a small church. There was a bulletin board out there and it simply said: You cannot make a success of life without making a gift of it. Subsequent to that, I thought that that certainly applied to Bill Emerson. Bill Emerson was a husband, he was a father, he was a son, he was a politician, and in all of those roles he made a success of those roles because he made a gift of his life. At this time when there is so much cynicism and apathy around the country about politics, I genuinely wish that people from all across America would have had an opportunity to sit down and talk to Bill Emerson about government, about a democracy, because he was truly committed to it. He believed in this body, he believed in our democracy and in our process, and all of us will miss him. We will be thinking about his wife Jo Ann and his four children.”