Baker University president emeritus Dan Lambert speaks at Friday's memorial service for former Sen. James B. Pearson in Baldwin City's First United Methodist Church.

Baldwin City ? Former Sen. James B. Pearson was remembered for his diverse abilities and his way of life during a memorial service Friday.

Pearson died Jan. 13 in Gloucester, Mass., at age 88. He was appointed to the U.S. Senate in 1962 and was re-elected every six years until he retired in 1978. Pearson owned a farm just outside Baldwin City following retirement, and on Friday many stories were told of his time there. He was remembered as a legislator, pilot, voracious reader, family man and someone who loved a good laugh.

“He was my friend and surely one of the greatest men I have ever been blessed to know,” said Baker University President Emeritus Dan Lambert, who got to know Pearson well as a member of Baker’s board of trustees. “Jim Pearson had a wonderful sense of humor. He told about a campaign trip to western Kansas where he flew in and out of many places one day. By the last stop, he was getting kind of fuzzy.

“He jumped on the stand to the podium and said, ‘I can’t tell you how happy I am to be in, uh, uh, wherever the hell I am,'” said Lambert, noting that Pearson won that county in the election by a wide margin.

Lambert said it was Pearson’s love of the farm and Baldwin City that stood out to him.

“He was among Baldwin’s gentry,” Lambert said. “I think that’s the man that most of us will carry with us. He enjoyed the one-mile trip from Baldwin’s suburbs to pick up mail and talking to people.

“He loved his farm. He loved his tractor, his riding mower and, mostly, his pickup truck,” he said. “He said he trades pickups every 11 years, whether he needs to or not.”

Lambert praised Pearson for his intellect and his tremendous will and — his best act for Baldwin City — for bringing his wife, Margie, who is still a member of Baker’s board of trustees.

“Good friends are a gift from God,” Lambert told about 150 people gathered at First United Methodist Church. “We thank him now for James Blackwood Pearson.”

Former U.S. Sen. Nancy Kassebaum Baker — as well as David Seaton, Pearson’s press secretary, and James Pearson Jr. — also spoke to the crowd that included 15 members of Pearson’s family. Kassebaum Baker succeeded Pearson in the Senate. She was elected in November 1978, but Pearson resigned about a month early and the governor appointed her to serve the remainder of his term.

There was a reason.

“He stepped down early so I could gain some seniority,” said Kassebaum Baker, noting that she’d just heard the story Friday morning of how Pearson’s two-word resignation — “I quit” — was penned on a napkin given to the vice president.

She credited Pearson for achieving good legislation. But she also said it was farm work that pleased him most.

“Nothing means more than getting to the farm,” Kassebaum Baker recalled Pearson saying. On the farm, Pearson would say, “By the end of the day, you knew what you had done.” That wasn’t always the case in Washington, D.C.

Throughout the service there were numerous mentions of major legislative action he was involved with, such as deregulation of natural gas and the airline industry. Kassebaum Baker said it was his ability to work across the aisle that made him a great senator.

“He was someone who really valued to think about government,” she said. “He didn’t have his absolutes, he had the ability to reach across. He left an understanding of how important and valuable it is to not have absolutes, but to understand another’s point of view.”