Bob Dole’s Hometown Even Quieter After Election Defeat

For years, Bob Dole helped put this dusty little prairie town on the mental map for thousands of people who pulled off Interstate 70 to visit the home of one of the most powerful men in Washington.

Hometown folks hoped their native son would bring them even more recognition with a victory in the presidential election.

Now, however, the TV trucks and reporters are gone and residents are preparing for a quieter era.

“This town will keep right on going,” said Barbara Brown, 59, who handed out campaign signs on Main Street when Dole came home to vote Nov. 5. “But it’s helped our town with him running for president.”

Brown said that no matter where she travels out of state with her retired husband, people seem to know all about Russell, population 5,000. She credits Dole for this.

“People used to say, ‘Russell, where’s Russell?’ ” she said, “and you don’t hear that anymore.”

Restaurants and motels have undoubtedly benefited from Dole’s success, although there have been no formal studies of how many travelers stop because of him, said Allan Evans, publisher of the Russell Daily News.

But the town was never just one big Dole tourist trap, Evans said.

Agriculture and oil help pay most of the bills. The county is home to 40,000 head of cattle, some of the best grassland in the world and 2,810 producing oil wells, Evans said. Weather conditions for the wheat crop are the best in 47 years, he said. The unemployment rate is 3.7%.

But the oil fields and wheat fields rarely made national headlines and never appeared as featured guests on Sunday morning TV talk shows in Washington.

Dole served as a living reminder in Russell that people from small places can do big things. He also bolstered those who thought big-city folks in New York and Los Angeles laughed at their state.

“They think of Kansas out here as being a big, flat nothing,” said Dottie Dumler, 69, a retired music teacher.

Dumler said Dole’s loss to President Clinton did not embarrass the town. And she expects Dole to keep a high public profile shaping public policy as a Republican Party leader.

“Bob is going to bring us fame wherever he goes,” Dumler said. “He’s an elder statesman.”

Evans said he will propose that the town build a Dole library with donations from Kansans and Republicans nationwide, even though it wouldn’t be a match for the Eisenhower Library about 100 miles down the road in Abilene.

“I see no reason why we can’t have a Dole library here,” Evans said. “After all, he’s been the No. 1 Republican in the United States for a number of years.”

Few expect Dole to move back to his modest brick family home on North Maple Street. They expect that the career of his wife, Elizabeth Hanford Dole, will keep the couple in Washington until they retire to their condominium in Bal Harbour, Fla. Mrs. Dole leads the American Red Cross.

But they don’t expect Dole to be a stranger.

“I think he’ll be here some, maybe more than he was before,” said Russell County Commissioner Don Haberer.