Kit Bond
Christopher Samuel "Kit" Bond (born March 6, 1939) is the former governor and current senior United States Senator of Missouri. He is a member of the Republican Party.
Early life and Education
Bond is a sixth generation Missourian, born in St. Louis in 1939. He grew up in Mexico, MO, where he still resides and tends to several groves of trees he planted by hand. He graduated from Princeton University in 1960 and received his law degree from the University of Virginia, having graduated first in his class. After law school, Bond served as a clerk on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in Atlanta, Georgia, and practiced law for three years at the Washington, D.C. firm of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher.
Political career
In 1969, Bond became an Assistant Attorney General under former Senator John Danforth. Before being elected State Auditor in 1970, Bond was chief counsel of Missouri's Consumer Protection Division. At age 33, Kit Bond became the 47th Governor of the State of Missouri on January 8, 1973 - the youngest Governor the state has ever had. He was reelected in 1980. After his second successful term as Governor, Bond continued his service to Missouri from his newly won seat in the United States Senate. In that 1986 election year, Bond was the only Republican to capture a seat previously held by a Democrat.
