''A Straight Arrow'

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo.--Mel Carnahan once gambled his political future as Missouri's governor by raising taxes for schools--a risk that earned him the title "education governor."

The move, a $315 million tax increase in 1993 after a state judge threw out the state's form of paying for education, paid off: Carnahan was re-elected by a landslide in 1996.

"I did what I thought was right," Carnahan said in a 1996 interview with The Associated Press. It was a common theme for the two-term governor.

Carnahan, 66, died Monday night in a plane crash outside St. Louis on his way to a U.S. Senate campaign appearance. Also killed was his oldest son, Roger "Randy" Carnahan, and the governor's longtime adviser Chris Sifford.

Carnahan, a Democrat, was finishing his second term as governor and running for the Senate seat held by Republican John Ashcroft. Their race has been one of the closest and most bitterly contested in the nation this year.

Melvin Eugene Carnahan was born Feb. 11, 1934, in Birch Tree, in the Ozark Mountains. His parents had both been rural teachers, but his father, A.S.J. Carnahan, went on to serve in the U.S. House for 14 years and as ambassador to Sierra Leone under President Kennedy.

Carnahan spent two years in the Air Force after graduating from George Washington University in Washington, D.C., but he failed the physical for becoming an Air Force pilot.

Carnahan later earned his private pilot's license and flew often to escape the pressures of office. Randy Carnahan, one of the couple's four children, was also a licensed pilot and often flew his father to campaign events.

As a lawyer and Baptist deacon, Carnahan was known for an upright image and a laid-back style. His supporters wore straight-arrow lapel pins.

But Carnahan also poked fun at his stuffy image. At Halloween, Carnahan and his wife put on elaborate costumes to welcome thousands of trick-or-treaters to the governor's mansion.

The avuncular Carnahan displayed easy rapport with young people. He once pardoned a boy who had been grounded by his parents for telling a fib. And he drew spontaneous applause during a visit to a school when he read youngsters the Robert Frost poem "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening."

Carnahan won his first public election at age 26 as a municipal judge in his hometown of Rolla. He was elected to the Missouri House of Representatives two years later and served two terms, and later served as state treasurer.

In 1988, Carnahan was elected lieutenant governor. In 1992, he won the governor's office in a landslide, and he won a second term in 1996.

A strong death-penalty proponent, Carnahan made headlines last year during Pope John Paul II's visit to St. Louis when he honored a personal request from the pope and spared a murderer from the death chamber.

Also last year, he apologized for his youthful insensitivity for appearing in blackface makeup in a couple of hometown minstrel shows in the early 1960s after photos surfaced.

The 1993 school tax legislation brought smaller elementary class sizes, computers in classrooms, vocational programs and better teacher training. Seven years later, Carnahan still counted it as his proudest accomplishment.

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Mel Carnahan

BORN: 1934; 66 years old.

HOMETOWN: Rolla, Mo.; born in Birch Tree, Mo.

EDUCATION: Bachelor's degree in business administration from George Washington University; law degree from the University of Missouri-Columbia.

PROFESSIONAL: Served as agent in the U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations during the Korean War; Rolla municipal judge, 1960; state representative, 1962-66; majority floor leader, Missouri House, 1964-66; state treasurer, 1980-84; lieutenant governor, 1988-92; governor, 1992-present.

PERSONAL: Married to Jean; children: Roger, Russ, Robin and Tom; two grandchildren; a licensed pilot.

QUOTE: "As a youth, I remember (Adlai) Stevenson saying public service was a `high calling' and urging young people to get involved. I am still enough of an idealist to believe he was right."

-- The Associated Press