The first thing a person who’d never met Bill McKenna had to notice was the 200-watt smile and the Irish twinkle in his eyes.
This guy, the visitor might be startled to think, is actually glad to see me.
And, yes, the guy actually was.
McKenna, who died Saturday at 79, had a list of accomplishments longer than his list of relatives, which was impressive by itself, he being the oldest of 10 siblings. It was his friendly demeanor and genuine interest in people that opened the door to those accomplishments.
He was working in the building trades in 1982 when Jefferson County was granted a new seat in the Missouri House of Representatives by virtue of its population growth determined by the 1980 census.
He ran in a crowded Democratic primary and knocked on doors for weeks after work, smiling his way to the seat. After he filed to run, he found out his father had served a single term in the Missouri House just before World War II. Bill’s son, Ryan, would later follow his dad and grandfather to the General Assembly, marking the third generation of McKennas to serve there.
Bill’s approach to politics, to his extensive volunteer work later on and to his life, was deceptively simple:
“How can I help?”
What separated Bill from many others who might employ the phrase were three things: sincerity, follow-through and – almost unheard of in politics – he didn’t care who got the credit.
A good example was the expansion of Hwy. 21 from St. Louis County to Hillsboro, known at the time as Blood Alley for the fatalities it caused as a dangerously outdated two-lane road.
Bill was the point man between the Legislature, the Missouri Department of Transportation and the office of former U.S. Rep. Richard Gephardt, whose congressional district included Jefferson County.
Gephardt largely was given credit, rightfully so, for securing the federal funds necessary to build 15 miles of four-lane highway. Bill didn’t care – he smiled in the background as the ribbons were cut. The important thing was, the safer highway got built and fatal crashes plummeted.
Those qualities were obvious even inside the cynical, hard-bitten world of politics. He served 10 years in the House and nearly six in the Missouri Senate where his colleagues elected him president pro tempore, the top leadership job, his last two years. He didn’t really care which party his colleagues belonged to if they were sincere about getting things done.
When he left the Legislature at the end of 1998, his self-deprecating humor was on full display.
“I was the first member of the Legislature turned out by term limits,” he said. Because he had served only the last year and a half of an unexpired Senate term in 1993, when he was re-elected in 1994 he was termed out because the 1992 amendment said no one could serve more than eight years in either chamber. Another four-year Senate term would have put him over the limit. That was later amended to allow two full terms and a prior partial term of less than two years.
Bill’s next stop was Jefferson College, where he was hired as vice president. His contacts and relationships in the Legislature, where the sausage gets made and the money gets appropriated, were beneficial to Jefferson College and all junior colleges in Missouri.
When Jefferson’s president resigned somewhat suddenly a couple of years later, the trustees didn’t need a national search – they had their man just down the hall.
Along the way, Bill served on such high-profile gigs as the Missouri Highway Commission to ones as humble as serving Meals on Wheels. Helping the state as a whole, helping seniors who needed hot meals in Crystal City. Those were a fraction of the non-profit boards, committees and citizens’ groups with which he shared his time and wisdom. One of his few flaws was he wasn’t very good at saying no.
He also served on the board of Jefferson Memorial Hospital in Crystal City during its final years as an independent hospital and played a significant role when it was bought by the Mercy health system. The local hospital was offered one seat on the big Mercy board in St. Louis. His colleagues sent Bill to fill it and make sure the county’s voice was heard.
Retirement was going well for Bill and his wife, Debbie. They had their volunteer work, some travel and that big extended family. Just as the pandemic began showing its teeth in early 2020, he went to see his doctor.
“Something wasn’t quite right,” he told me.
It was not. He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.
Most cases of the disease are Stage 4, with the cancer having moved into other parts of the body. In Bill’s case, it was Stage 2. Still extremely serious, but with more options for treatment.
So he fought, using medicine, faith, humor and the support of family and friends. He fought like a warrior for 6 1/2 years. Until last Saturday.
I never once heard him complain.
Journalists and politicians are natural adversaries and generally leery of one another. With Bill, resistance was futile. We knew each other for more than 40 years and kept in regular touch during our retirements.
Jefferson County has produced some accomplished people in the last seven or eight decades. Bill Bradley – NBA star, Olympic gold medalist, U.S. senator, presidential candidate; Jay Nixon, a four-term attorney general and two-term governor; several Major League ballplayers; the car-racing Wallaces; numerous business successes.
While acknowledging those, I believe Jefferson County has lost its most selfless, hard-working advocate of the last half-century. Though he was a public figure, he did a lot of his work out of the spotlight, with compassion, humor and true humility.
That’s who Bill McKenna was.
Patrick Martin is the founding publisher and editor of Leader Publications. He retired in 2017.
Read the obituary for William P. "Bill" McKenna, 79, of Festus here.
Former state senator from Crystal City dies at 79
By Abby Stetina
Former state senator and longtime Jefferson County advocate William “Bill” McKenna died June 27. He was 79.
He died after a yearslong battle with pancreatic cancer.
McKenna, who lived in Crystal City and most recently in Festus, held several elected offices.
As a Democrat, he was elected to represent the 102nd District in the Missouri House for six terms, from 1983-1993. He represented the 22nd District in the Missouri Senate from 1993-1999, also serving as president pro tem in 1997 during the 89th General Assembly.
McKenna was the first member of the Legislature to be term-limited out, due to a 1992 amendment to the Constitution stating an elected official can serve no more than eight years in either chamber.
McKenna’s son Ryan was elected to the Missouri House in 1998. He then was elected to the Senate in 2006 and served through 2014. Ryan said it was an honor following in his father’s footsteps.
“A big problem I’ve seen during my time in Jeff City is kids or spouses of former elected officials carry the baggage of their family members unfairly, I think a lot of times. And when I got there, there was no baggage,” Ryan said. “My dad was equally respected by folks on both sides of the aisle, people on far ends of the political spectrum.”
Ryan said his father was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer nearly seven years ago, and underwent treatment with no complaints, even when in extreme pain.
“It is a miracle that he was alive that long,” Ryan said. “Thank God for my stepmother, Debbie. She made him go to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., and I would say they started the path of saving his life, and then the doctors and nurses at Mercy St. Louis and Mercy Hospital Jefferson continued that, and they saved his life and gave our family what we thought at the beginning would be maybe six months; they gave us seven extra years.”
Former state Sen. Steve Stoll, who succeeded Bill McKenna in the Legislature, said McKenna helped him a lot, especially when he was serving in the House.
“He was always good with the jokes, and I never saw him angry at anyone,” Stoll said. “He was just a great guy, and he was a good legislator. Everybody liked Bill.
“I saw him one day, and he said he was going to the Mayo Clinic. And I said something about why are you going up there. He said, ‘It’s because they want to see why I’ve lived so long with pancreatic cancer.’ He lived life to the fullest, and he was a very thoughtful individual.”
Jay Nixon, who served as governor from 2009-2017, served in the state Senate around the same time McKenna was in the House. When Nixon of De Soto was elected as Missouri’s attorney general in 1992, McKenna filled out the remainder of Nixon’s term in the Senate.
“He was always focused on the policy, on the issue, on what was underneath the politics,” Nixon said. “He had a lot of what is missing right now, which is people who want to talk about the issues, whether it’s an issue about managing the Department of Public Safety or state parks or a Medicaid question. He would get up to speed on it, and I think people respected his informed thoughts.”
Nixon called McKenna a one-of-a-kind person of service, whether he was holding elected office or not.
“He always tried to help, whether it was somebody who needed $5 to get dinner, or somebody who needed to change the law or change the rules,” Nixon said. “His service was very broad, but his word was never questioned, and his sincerity was always top drawer. He’s a good example of someone who people trusted, and they trusted for the right reasons.
“There wasn’t a veneer around Bill McKenna. He was who he was.”
Following his time in the Senate, McKenna served as Jefferson College’s president from 2002-2006, also serving on the board for the Jefferson Memorial Hospital in Crystal City, and later sitting on the board for Mercy, once the hospital transitioned to Mercy Hospital Jefferson in 2013.
McKenna was dedicated to the development of Jefferson County, said his colleagues and friends.
McKenna was one of the “founding fathers,” along with Skip Johnson, of the Jefferson County Growth and Development Association in 1984, said Dan Govero, president of the Jefferson County Growth Association.
“(McKenna) was very active in the county,” Govero said. “He was easygoing, real friendly to everybody and did whatever he could to make things happen. He was just a great guy.”
Govero said one of the early goals of the Growth and Development Association was to put Jefferson County on the map, letting developers know the county was open for business.
“All we heard, all the time, was ‘St. Charles, St. Charles, St. Charles.’ So, with the Growth and Development Association, they raised a lot of money for television advertising, billboards and radio advertising, to let others know Jefferson County is really here,” Govero said. “And it worked; it brought a lot of builders in.”
Stoll said McKenna served as president of Jefferson College while he was a senator. At the time, the entrance to the college in Hillsboro was a big issue, Stoll said, and the Missouri Department of Transportation “just wanted to put in a regular entrance.”
“Bill said, ‘No, no, no. I really think this should be a showcase for Jefferson County,’ and he proposed what is there now,” Stoll said. “I attribute that to him, because it’s a beautiful entrance.”
McKenna served on a number of Senate committees, including transportation and budget control. He took the lead in forming a citizen action group called the Coalition for Highway Safety, established to improve safety on Jefferson County roads. One project in particular was to construct a new, four-lane highway to replace a dangerous 28-mile stretch of Hwy. 21 from the Meramec River in St. Louis County to De Soto, known as Blood Alley.
Bill Seek, MRV Banks business development officer and bank vice president, said McKenna was critical in securing approval and funding to expand Jefferson Memorial Hospital in the mid-1990s. Seek, who served as the CEO of the hospital at the time, said McKenna also secured funding for the Crystal Oaks nursing home, which opened in 1995.
“It was very invaluable help,” Seek said. “He was definitely a champion for the community, and not just Crystal City, which is where he was from, and where he lived, but also the whole area, the county and even the state. He did a lot of things at the state level that were instrumental in moving the state forward.”
Born in St. Louis, Bill was the second oldest of 10 siblings. He graduated from St. Louis University High School and earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in public administration from Southeast Missouri State University, according to the Senate website.
Ryan said his father’s two proudest jobs he ever had were delivering for Meals on Wheels for nearly two decades in the Festus-Crystal City area with his wife, Debbie, and being called dad to Lisa, Ryan, Jen, Janine and Joe.
McKenna’s many grandchildren have a special moniker for him.
“My dad would make a noise, and my stepmom would say, ‘Shoosh, the baby is sleeping,’” Ryan said. “So, the first grandkid thought his (Bill’s) name was Shoosh, and now all the grandkids call him Shoosh.”
One of the last projects McKenna worked on, Ryan said, was raising money to open a transitional housing facility operated by Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Crystal City.
The facility, called Caritas House, would be the first of its kind in the county serving unhoused people, according to previous Leader reporting.
Ryan said it was his father’s wish that, in place of flowers, donations be made to the Caritas House.
He added that McKenna practiced the words of the Bible, and he and Debbie were members of Sacred Heart.
“He was always kind, always thoughtful,” Ryan said. “He cared about the less fortunate, as evidenced by his last wish to help unhoused individuals. It always seemed like whatever issue he was working for was for the betterment of somebody else.”
A funeral Mass will be held at 10 a.m. on July 10 at Sacred Heart, 555 Bailey Road. A reception will immediately follow at The Marquee on Main, 516 Bailey Road. Funeral arrangements are under the direction of Vinyard Funeral Home in Festus.