Published: November 26, 2008 02:17 am      

Underwood devoted life to betterment of our state

The death of former Gov. Cecil Underwood on Monday takes a good West Virginian from our midst.

He served the state well throughout his lifetime and served it without any scandals to mar his record.

He was always very distinguished — whether in his first term of governor back in the 1950s or in his second and final term in the 1990s when he filled the role as the state’s leader quite well. He certainly looked the role. Having the rare distinction of being both the state’s youngest governor and 40 years later its oldest, he served people from two different eras. And he did it with class.

His first jump into state politics came in 1944 when, at the age of 22, he was elected to the West Virginia House of Delegates as a Tyler County Republican. The House was where he remained until 1956 when he defeated Robert Mollohan in the race for governor — going in with the major landslide that sent Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower into the White House.

He also was the beneficiary of a controversy involving Mollohan that involved a strip-mining operation at Pruntytown that surfaced just days before the election. Underwood became West Virginia’s first Republican governor since 1928.

One thing for which Underwood will always be remembered were the honest campaigns he ran and the clean terms of office that he served.

Underwood often described himself — in jest, of course — as the Harold Stassen of West Virginia politics. He was always running for office, but seldom winning. But being a two-term governor four decades removed, he is remembered by many as the “gentleman” governor. He was always immaculate. Always perfectly groomed.

In between his terms of governor, he once worked for an insurance firm — New York Life. He was involved in industrial development work, developing an industrial park in Morgantown with Software Valley. He was employed by the Huntington-based Island Creek Coal Co. and the Monsanto Corp. He was president of Bethany College and a vice president at Salem College when elected governor in 1956.

Former Gov. Bob Wise, who is now president of the Alliance for Excellent Education, had one of the nicest tributes for the man he defeated in 2000 for the state’s highest office.

Wise said that Underwood devoted his life to West Virginia. “He left a legacy that in so many ways has improved life for generations of West Virginians. He constantly demonstrated how to govern effectively in a bipartisan manner. He was a gentleman in the finest sense of the word.”

That he was. And that is one of the many ways in which Gov. Cecil Underwood is being remembered today following his death Monday at the age of 86.