For many years, Bob Londerholm—dashing, articulate, a crackerjack attorney—made himself at home in the halls of politics. As Kansas attorney general, Londerholm was the state's chief law enforcement officer. As such, he steered the legal affairs of state during some wild and worrisome times.

Today Londerholm is most comfortable behind the wheel of his 1952 Ford 8N tractor, which he uses to haul, pull, push, and prod at the farm home called Camelot Ranch that he shares with his wife of 59 years, Bev, and their Yorkiepoo, Lydi.

He is a classic example of a public servant-landsman.

Londerholm, now 80, doesn't long for his days in the limelight, but he has clear memories of them, along with plenty of strong opinions about public service today.

Tell us about your earliest years, Bob.
I was born in Kansas City, Mo., on July 5, 1931. My family stayed in Kansas City for most of my elementary school years and then relocated to Pasadena, Calif., where my father was an aircraft engineer.

My family was financially comfortable, but I wasn't spoiled. At age 11, I got a bike from my parents. My mother wanted me to make money, so I used the bike to deliver drugs for a local pharmacist, earning 50 cents a night.

We stayed in California long enough for me to complete high school, then returned to the Kansas City area in 1948. I earned an associate's degree from Kansas City Missouri Junior College, working for The Kansas City Star at night as I studied journalism. Then I transferred to the University of Kansas, where I graduated in 1953. Intense study at the KU School of Law followed, with the earning of a JD degree in 1955.

As for many young men at that time, my next step was military service. I did active duty with the Air Force from 1955 to 1957 at Francis E. Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming, then served on the Judge Advocate staff at Richards Gebaur Air Force Base as a mobilization-day reservist in the grade of captain. I retired at the rank of colonel from Strategic Air Command headquarters in Omaha, Neb.

When and how did your interest in public service begin?
When I was a junior at KU, in 1952, I was a friend of Fred Six, who was active in the Collegiate Young Republicans. My mother was an ardent Democrat from Missouri, you see, and my dad was an equally ardent Republican. I wasn't tightly bound to either party, but I told Fred I would help with Dwight Eisenhower's presidential campaign because Ike was from Kansas. That's how it all began.

What were some of your key political involvements over the years?
I was Pres. Ronald Reagan's first choice in 1981 as chairman of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, 10th District, and I also served as general counsel for the Kansas Corporation Commission. I chaired the Kansas Racing Commission, was on the Johnson County Planning Commission, and was vice president of the Blue Valley School Board, and was assistant secretary and attorney for Rural Fire District No. 2. I was special counsel for the Johnson County Airport Commission in acquiring the old Olathe Naval Air Station from the government.

But of course the center of everything was your tenure as the state's attorney general, from January 1965 to January 1969.
I'm very proud to have been elected attorney general—in part because it's probably the second-most important job in state government. The attorney general is elected, and therefore is on a par with the governor. As AG, you're the chief law enforcement officer for the state. You're pretty powerful while being in the least political part of state government. You're enforcing the law, not making the law.

Being attorney general had its tensions. When state legislators asked for a legal opinion from the AG's office, we'd have to produce it fast. County and district attorneys from 105 counties were constantly requesting AG opinions.

What surprised you most about the office?
I was pretty well-prepared because I'd been assistant attorney general, tapped by Johnson County's own John Anderson in 1957 when he was state attorney general. (By the way, at that time the AG's entire staff numbered seven. Now there are probably 80 or so on the staff!)

Probably the most difficult thing was that I thought of myself as an attorney, and I didn't want to lose my law skills—but the job was very administrative. This is the chief reason I did not seek reelection after two terms, although I had won by large margins.

What was your most memorable case as attorney general?
Well, the infamous Clutter family murders in western Kansas had to be right on top. When I was an assistant attorney general, the conviction of Richard Hickock and Perry Smith was being appealed, and at one point I had to go down into the "catacombs" in the state house, where evidence was kept. I actually stumbled on a bloody cardboard mattress box cover being stored there for the case.

I was invited to watch the two men hang, but I was conflicted about the death penalty, and I didn't go. Then, when I was attorney general, Truman Capote was around, doing research for his book, In Cold Blood.

I'm proud to say that Logan Sanford, head of the Kansas Bureau of Investigation at that time, said of me, "We've never had a better attorney general."

How about some other striking cases?
We were involved with the state's obscenity statutes, trying to figure out precisely how to define obscenity. "The Moon Is Blue," a Swedish film, was being used as a test case, and so it was shown to many of the federal justices in a theater at Richards-Gebaur Air Force Base. That was an experience! The statutes ended up being pretty much knocked out.

Then there was Kansas' status as a "dry" state. It had been bone dry—no liquor sold anywhere—and then liquor could be sold by the bottle in stores and country clubs could sell liquor by the drink. It was legal for "bottle clubs" to serve "your" liquor, so what about the Elks and the American Legion? What classified as a "club"? The situation became an enforcement nightmare.

I always fought to get rid of outdated, dusty laws, some dating to the 1870s, because it's my opinion that the laws should be enforced. If we're not going to enforce them, we should get rid of them.

One old law that did prove useful was an early Kansas anti-trust law originally aimed at the "beef barons" and their "trusts" in the 1880s. We dusted it off and ended up filing 13 anti-trust suits on behalf of the state and local governments for "price rigging" for such things as highway asphalt, school buses, bleacher seats, and chlorine for municipal pools. We recovered millions of dollars, paying the "cost" of the AG office many times over. This was one of my proudest accomplishments in office.

I was in office during the early years of Vietnam War dissent at the University of Kansas, including some student sit-ins at Strong Hall. There was a big effort to arrest the students, claiming that they were disturbing the peace and "putting in fear" the KU staff in the chancellor's office. But in fact the students were very respectful and always left an aisle open for staff to come and go. None of the staff would testify that they were afraid, so the case was dismissed. For a time during this period, we had a command post set up in the chancellor's residence.

There was also a fight between Kansas and Colorado over the Arkansas River Compact. It involved Sand Creek in Colorado and the building of a reservoir there. The governor wanted me to file suit against Colorado (and suits between states are heard directly by the Supreme Court of the United States). Well, some huge flooding wiped out the reservoir in question and there was no need to continue the suit; Colorado dropped its plans. I have to admit to thinking, "God is on our side"!

Then there was the grain elevator scandal. Federal money from the U.S. Department of Agriculture was available to farmers for storing their excess grain, and the elevators would self-report how much was in storage. To ensure honesty, federal audits were sometimes held. In Kansas, a Wichita man named Bill Addington was running for governor, and according to the audit he seemed to be falsifying his records at his Hutchinson elevator. That was the end of his political career.

How would you summarize your law career following state service?
In 1969 I joined the firm of Hackler, Anderson, Londerholm, Speer, Vader and Austin (now Speer and Holliday in Olathe). My primary area of practice was representing nursing and retirement homes, mostly nonprofits like the Good Samaritan Society and Lakeview Village. I also served on the legal committee of the American Association of Homes and Services for the Aging.

I retired from the full-time practice of law in the 1990s, but it was just two years ago now that I gave up my law license.

Would you want to be practicing today?
The practice of law used to be very general. I respected and liked a general practice. Now it's specialized to the extreme.

You've performed lots of other public service, as well.
Yes, I served on the Olathe Good Samaritan Society advisory board and the Scandinavian Association board, volunteered with Johnson County Catch-a-Ride, and am active with the Church of the Resurrection, where I teach Sunday School.

But the public service I'm probably most proud of is People to People and our sponsorship at the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth. The People to People movement dates back more than half a century to its founding by Pres. Eisenhower in 1956. Eisenhower was acting on his belief that direct interaction between ordinary citizens around the world can promote cultural understanding and world peace.

Our military benefits from People to People when trouble spots crop up in the world, because People to People, along with our officers getting acquainted, has a way of cementing relationships even better than government-to-government contacts can sometimes do.

That legacy of hope lives on in People to People Programs on seven continents—and Bev and I have been privileged to host international officers and their families for 11 years, from countries including Taiwan, Poland, Trinidad and Tobago, the Czech Republic, Sweden, Lithuania, and now The Netherlands. Getting to know individual people and maintaining their friendships has been one of our strongest joys.

What do you have to say about politics today?
Everything is more and more politicized. Here's an example: There used to be only a National Association of Attorneys General. The AGs from all the states would meet, have discourse and debate, and grow to respect each other. Now there are separate Democratic and Republican AG associations. I hate to see that.

In 2010, you began to enter the Republican race for U.S. Senate.
Yes, but mostly I wanted to raise some issues. When I was convinced that other Republican candidates were aware of the threat posed by the growing federal debt, and were going to address it, I withdrew.

If you had been on Capitol Hill this summer, what would you have done to try to reach a debt ceiling/budget agreement?
My nature is to get people together for the good of the country. Collaboration is so important. But today, everybody seems to be playing for political positioning. I wish that this summer I'd gotten a sense that Congress was trying to serve the public welfare, with less political posturing. But they just keep kicking the can down the road. We're a debtor nation, and that affects the whole economy and our military standing in the world. Now and then I think about writing a book and titling it The Rise and Fall of America. I'm very worried about my grandkids and what we're dumping on them.

Enough of politics; talk about this beautiful spread in southern Olathe!
We're lucky to live on 31 acres with a lake, a pool, a rowboat, and a paddleboat. Bev and I bought this place in 1969 and we have no interest in living anywhere else!

I'm a "semi-farmer." We grow corn, soybeans, and wheat on our land (we pay a wonderful neighbor to farm for us). I so admire farmers, because as I see it, they're right up against life and they have to know how to survive. We've raised cattle, kept horses, and even had some sheep one year.

The tractor is my prize possession. In the years after World War II, this was the primary front-line tractor for small farmers. I got it at auction.

We raised our children here, and they had their friends out for fall hay rides and for parties after every football game, prom, graduation, and senior day.

Family is very important to you.
Family is everything. I've been married to Beverly for 59 years. We have four children: Rob Jr. and wife, Deloris, in western Texas with three sons (Rob is a teacher/coach); David and wife, Sue, in San Diego with three sons (David is an engineer); Steven, a building contractor in Olathe; and Katherine and husband, Randy, in Atherton, Calif., with 10 children. We now count 18 grandchildren, including two wonderful "new" granddaughters-in-law.

What do you see as your legacy to your family and to the state?
I hope people view me as having always told the truth and always been thoughtful of other people. I've always been troubled by disputes. I'm a peacemaker.

John Anderson Jr.
John Anderson Jr. was born May 8, 1917. A longtime Johnson County resident, Anderson held the position of Kansas attorney general from March 1956 to January 1961 and of Kansas governor from 1961 to 1965. Anderson was a valued mentor to Bob Londerholm, who considers him a dear friend.

To honor Anderson's role in state office, the post office facility in Olathe and a section of Highway K-10 are named for him.

His beloved wife, Arlene, died in February 2011 in Olathe. They had been married since 1943 and had three children: John Anderson III and his wife, Cathy; Kerry Anderson Russell and her husband, Paul Russell; and David Anderson and his wife, Elizabeth.

Today Anderson, 94, lives in a Johnson County nursing care facility.

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