Name honors distinguished lawyer

By Jo Ann Emerson

A new U.S. courthouse in Cape Girardeau is nearly complete. It will contain three U.S. District Court courtrooms, house nearly 100 employees of the court and have offices for my 8th Congressional District staff and our two U.S. senators.

The building is 156,000 square feet, and it reflects both the growth of our Southeast Missouri community and our regard for the rule of law.

The building stands not only on Missouri ground, but also on a long and proud tradition of shaping the laws of our land in the form of our Southeast Missouri values and upholding them.

So when the question arose as to how we should name this courthouse, there was one person on everyone's mind: Rush H. Limbaugh Sr. Senators Bond and Talent have introduced the appropriate legislation in the Senate to name the courthouse, and I have done so in the U.S. House of Representatives.

It is important for our new courthouse to bear a name that reflects the long history of our service to the law and to the people. In this regard, there is no better name to grace the courthouse than Mr. Limbaugh's.

Rush H. Limbaugh Sr. was born in Bollinger County in 1892. Old enough to recount his trip to the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis, his life was interwoven with the history of our state. Likewise, the laws of our state are interwoven with his life.

By vocation, Rush H. Limbaugh Sr. was an accomplished lawyer who practiced in Southeast Missouri for 75 years until his death at the age of 104 in 1996, when he was still going in to work twice a week. In the early days of India's independence in the 1950s, the U.S. State Department sent him to be an ambassador for the U.S. legal system. He lectured on the practice of law in America.

Mr. Limbaugh also served as president of the Missouri Bar, helped write Missouri probate law and served as president of the Missouri State Historical Society.

Mr. Limbaugh's record of legal service is equally as impressive as his record of service to the community. Two of his main areas of service were to the Boy Scouts and to his church, where Mr. Limbaugh was a Sunday school teacher. In addition, Mr. Limbaugh held close his relationship with Southeast Missouri State University, serving as counsel for that academic institution.

To him, our community was made of people, just as it was made of laws.

Set aside all of his accomplishments, and Rush H. Limbaugh Sr. was a devoted family man, a man of faith and a student of American history. He wouldn't want his name adorning our courthouse, but that is exactly why it is important that we put it there.

The Rush H. Limbaugh Sr. United States Courthouse will be a home for justice. It will also be a place of service where our federal elected officials work on behalf of the people of the 8th District. Finally, it will be a forum for ideas expressed in conversations and debates about the laws of our land, recounting our past and shaping our future.

Jo Ann Emerson of Cape Girardeau represents Missouri's 8th District in the U.S. House of Representatives.