LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Former Arkansas Governor and U.S. Senator David Pryor was remembered by family, friends and colleagues, including former President Bill Clinton, during a funeral service on Saturday.
Pryor died on April 20 at the age of 89 from natural causes. The memorial was held at a Little Rock church.
Clinton said at the service that Pryor — with whom Clinton had worked for years in Arkansas politics — was one of the few people he could count on in Washington to give him difficult news.
“You’d be surprised how many people are so intimidated by the office of the presidency that they go into the Oval Office again and again and tell the president what they think the president wants to hear, not what the president wants to hear. needs to hear,” Clinton said. “David Pryor wasn’t like that.”
Clinton highlighted Pryor’s years of work to improve nursing homes.
“He believed that every person had the right to live in dignity throughout their lives,” Clinton said.
Pryor was a Democrat who was elected governor in 1974 and served for four years before being elected to the U.S. Senate. He served three terms before deciding not to seek re-election in 1996. Pryor’s son, Mark Pryor, served two terms in the U.S. Senate.
David Pryor was considered one of the giants of the party in Arkansas, alongside Clinton and the late U.S. Sen. Dale Bumpers. He also served as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives and the Arkansas Legislature, and remained active in public life in recent years, including his appointment to the University of Arkansas Board of Trustees in 2009.
He also served as temporary chairman of the state Democratic Party in 2008, after the chairman was fatally shot in his office.
Pryor was one of the state’s most beloved figures, praised by Republicans and Democrats. Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders and former Gov. Jim Guy Tucker were among mourners with family and friends in the rotunda Friday as Pryor’s casket lay in state at the Arkansas Capitol.
Despite all the work Pryor did, Clinton said Pryor always felt he could do more.
“He proved it by the votes he cast, the actions he took, the speeches he gave and the life he built after he left office,” Clinton said. “And when you add up the score, there are a lot of people who are better off because David Pryor lived. And all of us who were along are better off too, aren’t we?’
