Former Missouri Governor, Senator Kit Bond dies at 86

Former Missouri GOP Gov. and Senator Christopher “Kit” Bond has died at 86.

Bond's family told Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe’s office that the former senator died in St. Louis but didn't disclose the cause, the Associated Press reported Tuesday. Kehoe ordered flags flown at half-staff for the “skilled statesman.”

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., posted on X that he and his wife "were saddened to hear of the death of our friend, Kit Bond. What a champion for Missouri. He served his state and his nation with the utmost distinction for decades - and he was above all a fine man."

Bond was a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, where he secured federal funds for Missouri, brushing off comments about him being a master of pork-barrel spending.

“If it’s pork, it’s an awfully healthy diet for the people of Missouri,” Bond said in 1999.

He was also the youngest governor elected in Missouri at age 33 and the first Republican to hold the office in about 30 years. Although Bond lost his reelection bid, he won the office again the following election. Two years after leaving the governorship for the second time, he became a U.S. senator, a position he held for 24 years before retiring in 2011.