Associated Press
SHEPHERDSTOWN —
The late Robert C. Byrd’s U.S. Senate offices have been cleaned out and thousands of documents representing a political career spanning six decades will be prepared for display in West Virginia.
On Thursday a collection of private papers, 1,300 framed plaques, awards, photographs, scrapbooks, political records and other items arrived at the Robert C. Byrd Center for Legislative Studies at Shepherd University.
The center has been collecting Byrd’s papers since 2002, but the items that arrived this week represent a collection of materials from his offices in Martinsburg, Charleston and Washington, D.C.
“His office was a museum of his career,” center director Raymond W. Smock said.
When Byrd died June 28 at age 92 he was the longest-serving member of Congress. In 2006, he was re-elected to a record ninth term in the Senate. He served through 11 presidential administrations.
He was elected to the U.S. House in 1952, and six years later was elected to the Senate. He won his first political office in 1947 when he was elected to the West Virginia House of Delegates. He went on to serve two years in the state Senate before being elected to Congress.
“We won’t just have paper things but three-dimensional objects, like the flags that hung in his office, down to the ‘nicknacks’ that sat on his desk,” Smock said. “We’ll have an incredible record here by the time we’re done.”
The collection’s most important documents will be digitized and made available online. The center will also launch a statewide oral history project to interview friends, staff and colleagues who will provide anecdotes about Byrd’s life.
The center also stores legislative papers of the late U.S. Rep. Harley O. Staggers Sr., as well as those of his son, former U.S. Rep. Harley O. Staggers Jr.
