Rep. Ralph Tanner, R-Baldwin City, is pictured in his office in Topeka in this file photo from Feb. 21, 2000. (AP Photo/Orlin Wagner)

Friends and colleagues from Baker University and the Kansas Statehouse paid tribute Monday to Ralph Tanner, a former president of the university and member of the Kansas House, who died Thursday. He was 89.

“Dr. Tanner was well respected,” current Baker President Lynne Murray said Monday. “He dedicated his entire career to service, including educating of young people.”

Ralph Melvis Tanner was born Dec. 10, 1926, near Birmingham in Jefferson County, Ala. He studied at Birmingham-Southern College where he earned a bachelor’s degree in 1954 and a master’s degree in 1957. He began teaching history there in 1960, the same year he married his wife, Judith Berry Tanner.

Tanner continued to teach at Birmingham-Southern while working on his Ph.D. in history at the University of Alabama, which he received in 1967. Meanwhile, he rose through the ranks of several administrative positions at BSC and became its president in 1972. He stepped down from the president’s position in 1975 to accept a distinguished professorship position.

Tanner came to Baker University in December 1979 and served seven years as the school’s 26th president. After leaving the president’s post in 1987, Tanner remained active in the university and continued to teach.

In 1992, Tanner made his first bid for public office when he ran unsuccessfully for a seat on the Douglas County Commission. Two years later, though, he won a seat in the Kansas House in an open race to succeed former Rep. Walker Hendrix.

In this photo from 2002, State Rep. Tom Sloan, R-Lawrence, left, and Rep. Ralph Tanner, R-Baldwin, examine a sheet listing potential budget cuts to the Lawrence school district if then-Gov. Bill Graves' proposals were adopted.

“He was a gentleman,” said Rep. Tom Sloan, R-Lawrence, who served with Tanner in the House from 1995 through 2002. “He was highly regarded as the Rules Chairman because he was fair. He was soft-spoken and really wanted to improve the state’s contribution to K-12 funding.”

The rules chairman in the House is the person who decides points of order and other parliamentary questions. Sloan recalled that when Tanner was called upon to make a ruling, he would stride down to the podium in a formal, dignified pace from his seat near the back of the chamber, “and the others in the chamber would stomp their feet like a procession.”

“He loved that,” Sloan said. “He was very much the professor and a gentleman.”

Tanner served four terms in the House and rose in the Republican ranks to become chairman of the House Education Committee.

State Rep. Ralph Tanner, R-Baldwin City, is shown in this 2001 photo with his secretary Ann Deitcher, shortly after being named to chair the Kansas House Education Committee.

Mark Tallman, who lobbies for the Kansas Association of School Boards, remembered Tanner as “extremely intelligent, very erudite. Every inch the college professor and college president. Very witty.”

“That was right before and around the first Montoy (school finance) decision,” he said. “It was a period of tight budgets and the usual kind of clashes over school finance. That was also the early years of No Child Left Behind and some of those implications.

“I just remember he was very intelligent, very gracious,” Tallman said. “He kind of led the committee like a symposium, with a lot of discussion. Either the issues weren’t as contentious as they are now, or they’ve just kind of faded over time.”

Tanner lost his seat to Baldwin City Democrat Tom Holland in the 2002 elections, the same year Democrat Kathleen Sebelius was elected governor. Holland went on to serve three terms in that seat before he moved up to the Senate in 2008.

“He had an excellent reputation as president of Baker, and he was beloved by the citizens of Baldwin City,” Holland said of his former rival Monday. “He was a very decent and honest man. Straightforward.

“He was a moderate Republican that really cared about this state,” Holland said. “Just in my conversations with him, I know he got increasingly concerned about the conservative direction the state was taking, and he was reaching out to encourage more moderate influences.”

In a 2009 interview with the Baldwin City Signal, Tanner said his favorite pastimes were gardening and playing golf, and he described his ideal vacation spot as the Alabama Gulf Coast.

Tanner died Thanksgiving Day at Lawrence Memorial Hospital.

Murray said Tanner will be remembered during chapel services at Baker University this Thursday.

A public memorial service will be held at 1 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 22, at the First United Methodist Church in Baldwin City.