Topic: Kit Bond

Christopher Samuel "Kit" Bond (born March 6, 1939) is a former governor and current senior United States Senator from Missouri. He has been in the Senate since 1987 and is a member of the Republican Party. He announced on January 8, 2009 that he does not plan to seek re-election in 2010. Should Bond retire in January 2011, he will have served four full terms in the U.S. Senate.

A sixth-generation Missourian, Bond was born in St. Louis, Missouri, to Elizabeth Green and Arthur D. Bond. His father was captain of the 1924 Missouri Tigers football team and a Rhodes Scholar. His maternal grandfather, A.P. Green, founded A.P. Green Industries, a fireclay manufacturer and a major employer for many years in Bond's hometown Mexico, Missouri. Kit Bond graduated from Deerfield Academy in 1956, Princeton University in 1960, and the University of Virginia School of Law in 1963. From 1963 to 1964, Bond served as a law clerk to the Honorable Elbert Tuttle, then Chief Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in Atlanta, Georgia. From 1964 to 1967, Bond practiced law at Covington & Burling in Washington, D.C.

Bond's rise in Missouri politics was meteoric: four years after returning to his home state, he was elected governor. Bond moved back to his hometown of Mexico, Missouri in the fall of 1967, and ran for Congress in 1968. He won the Republican primary in August, and nearly defeated incumbent, Democratic Congressman Bill Hungate in November, winning 48%. Then-Attorney General John Danforth hired Bond as an Assistant Attorney General in 1969, where Bond led the office's Consumer Protection Division. At the age of 31, Bond was elected Missouri State Auditor in 1970; two years later, Bond captured the governor's mansion by 55% to 45%, making him, at 33 years of age, the youngest governor in the history of Missouri. Kit Bond was the first Republican in 28 years to serve as governor of Missouri. In 1976, he was on the short list of to be Gerald Ford's vice presidential running mate.