St. Louis Post-Dispatch from St. Louis, Missouri • Page 39

ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH METRO SUNDAY, DECEMBER 12, 1999 postnet.comnews Cll 1 V. Ml Carnahan Governor manages to lead private life Continued from CI (. 'X, I I sional seat in 1960. President John F.

Kennedy, an old congressional colleague, offered an ambassadorship to the elder Carnahan. He asked for a stint in a new country, and got Sierra Leone in Africa. That tour had fallout back in Rolla. Brothers Mel and Bob Carnahan decided that the traditional blackface minstrel shows were denigrating to blacks, although they performed in them through 1962. Mel Carnahan said it really hit home when an educator from predominantly black Sierra Leone came to visit the family in Rolla and "we had trouble finding him a place to stay or places to eat We had to make special arrangements.

"Our consciousness was waking up," Carnahan said. "I'm just sorry we weren't doing it sooner." African and Asian artifacts, from his father's years abroad and travels of other family members, fill his family room in Rolla. In 1960, Mel Carnahan ran for municipal judge when the job came open. Right before the filing, the local pool hall manager also filed. "I was going door-to-door to get elected a police judge," Carnahan said.

He won, then found out that local Democratic leaders had instigated the pool hall filing "as a joke, so I'd work." He credits that door-to-door contact with his success two years later when he ran for the Legislature, defeating three other Democrats. He rose quickly in the state House and was majority leader when he ran and lost a bid for the state Senate in 1966. Carnahan turned his focus back to Rolla, where he attended to his law practice and civic concerns. He served on the local School Board for five years, bringing in a new superintendent and persuading the public to approve the bonds needed to build a new junior high the community's first new school building in 28 years. In 1980, after 14 years in private life, Carnahan saw the right opportunity for statewide office when then-state Treasurer Jim Spain-hower ran for governor.

Carnahan won a contested primary and, a -few months later, won the general election to become Spainhower's successor. Carnahan was so determined to succeed in that political comeback that he put his Rolla law practice on hold. For 15 months he campaigned around the state, supporting himself and his family on his savings and by borrowing against his assets. At one point during that pivotal 1980 summer, Carnahan observed: "Someone asked me if it cost me all my assets other than my home, would I still run for public office? I said if that was the only decision I had to make, I'd do it every day of the week and twice on Sundays." Nineteen years and three offices later, Carnahan offers a more mature take. "Perhaps I went at it with a little too much youthful enthusiasm.

But my commitment to public service remains just as strong." he got older to milking the cows. Bob raised enough money for the car; Mel can't remember how he spent his share. Their father, says Bob, "was a crafty old devil. He was one of the most lovable men I've ever known, but he was strict." Shortly after Bob left home for the Navy, the elder Carnahan sold the cows and switched careers. He ran for, and was elected to, Congress.

Wife Mary and son Mel, now in the sixth grade, moved to Washington in 1945. The boy found himself in a school with 1,500 children several times the size of his old hometown. "I hated it You had high walls. I thought it was a prison," Carnahan said. He wasn't there long.

His father lost his first re-election bid in 1946. Mel Carnahan was back in beloved Ellsinore until the middle of 10th grade, when his father won back his seat and the family was back in Washington. This time, the change went better. Shortly after the family's return, 15-year-old Mel met a classmate at the local Baptist church and ended up in a seat next to hers the next day at Anacostia High School. The girl was Jean Carpenter.

"I don't know that Mel or Jean ever had a boyfriend or girlfriend other than each other," said Bob Carnahan, who lives with his wife within walking distance of the governor's farm. The brothers get together often. After high school, Mel Carnahan crammed his college years at George Washington University into LAURIE SKRIVAN POST-DISPATCH Returning from a haircut and an early morning run to the store, Gov. Mel Carnahan unpacks groceries with his wife, Jean, at their farm in Rolla, Mo. Mel does most of the cooking.

Pea soup, one of the governor's specialties, is on the stove. Washes the dishes frequently (relatives attest to it). Sneaks off occasionally to bicycle along the Katy Trail, often toting a bag to pick up trash along the route. Although publicly accessible, Carnahan generally avoids the Jefferson City social scene. He prefers the company of his family and the peace of a remote 40-acre spread outside of his adopted hometown of Rolla.

His private reserve extends to his public persona. Carnahan is known for his businesslike delivery (few jokes) and his general reluctance to talk about himself, present or psst. Aides tell of being chided if he spots an reference in a speech draft Friends and foes who disagree on his policies find common ground on his personality: a polite, principled and particular man who avoids public displays of passion or pique. "Mel's not one to gush his emotions," said former Lt. Gov.

Ken Rothman of Clayton, a fellow Democrat who served with Carnahan in the state House in the 1960s, and then defeated him for their party's nomination for governor in 1984. "I've never heard him utter a profanity," Rothman said, adding with a laugh that some call Carna-han's pending contest against Sen. John Ashcroft, "the clash of the moralist titans. I'm looking forward to see who says 'darn' first" Daughter Robin, who like her three brothers is extremely close to her father and shares his love of politics, acknowledges the contrasts in his character. "He's not a gregarious, outspoken person," said Robin, 38, a St.

Louis lawyer. "That doesn't mean that he's not competitive or passionate about things." His critics agree. "I must say, he has been effective in getting what he wants," said Sam Lee, head of Campaign Life, an anti-abortion group regularly at odds with the governor. The Legislature's override of Carnahan's veto of a bill banning some abortions is a rare loss for the governor, Lee said. "Objectively speaking, he uses his staff well to advance his agenda.

I just wish he wasn't governor," Lee said. Amid all the turmoil and triumphs of this second term, Carnahan "also has managed to fulfill a lifelong dream: completing his certification for a pilot's license. TTT 1 v. Betts suggests that Carnahan represents one side of Rolla's split personality, in politics and atmosphere. "You've got college students.

You've got Fort Leonard Wood," he said. Those contrasts, rural and urban, conservative and progressive, have shaped Rolla for decades. Similar splits have shaped Carnahan as well. He was born in 1934 in tiny Birch Tree, in south-central Missouri, the second son of two struggling teachers who operated a farm on the side primarily to feed the family. His father, Albert Sidney Johnson Carnahan, was supposed to be named after a Confederate general (Albert Sidney Johnston), but Carnahan's grandparents got the name wrong.

His father was known by his initials: A.S.J. By the time Mel was 5, his family had moved east to Ellsinore, near Poplar Bluff. A.S.J. rose up the education ranks to become superintendent. He started a free hot lunch program because many of the students couldn't afford to bring or buy lunch.

"He personally bought a truck," the governor said, to haul the available federal food commodities. The family usually boarded a couple of students at their house, because it was too far for some to commute daily between school and home. His father preached the same hands-on approach to solving problems at home. When Mel's older brother, Bob, wanted a car, he cut a deal with his father to allow the boys to raise the money by operating a milk-delivery business using milk from the family cows. "We charged 50 cents for seven quarts a week," Bob Carnahan recalls.

Seven-year-old Mel started out cleaning milk bottles, graduating as the songs on this Country CD are guaranteed to have a happy ending. It's hard to pigeonhole Carnahan, personally or professionally. Carnahan dislikes any labels or any comparisons. "My creed is that I want government to work and I want programs that people depend on to work well," he said on a sunny Saturday as he relaxed in the family room at his Rolla farm a pot of his own pea soup simmering on the stove. "I don't know how you can put a conservative or liberal label on that," Carnahan added.

"It is activist. But if you don't do that, nothing will happen." A life full of contrasts It's 9 a.m. on a quiet Saturday in Rolla. Carnahan is undergoing his regular $9 trim at the Downtown Barber Shop. He tries to be at the farm at least once a week.

He stops by the barbershop about twice a month. Carnahan's presence is so routine that the other customers in the barbershop volunteer their take on the governor, even if he's within earshot. "I catch him at Kroger's every now and then," said Mike Miller, 44, who's in the only other barber chair. Miller, a plant engineer for a nearby manufacturing company, went to school and Boy Scout camp with Carnahan's eldest, Randy. The governor, he continued, "has done a pretty fair job.

I don't have any complaints." As he waits his turn, Steve Betts, 27, says he's likely more conservative than Carnahan and may well vote for Ashcroft. Still, Betts, who drives a concrete truck, gives Carnahan high personal marks. Betts also sees the governor a lot around town. "Some may ask, 'How does he have enough time to come down here (to Rolla) to get his hair I don't buy that. I think it shows he's a regular guy." 1 1- three year's in part to meet the graduation recommendation of his father before Mel and Jean could get married.

The couple tied the knot in 1954, the Saturday after Mel got his diploma. A member of the Air Force ROTC in college, Carnahan joined the service after graduation and sustained his first major disappointment. He failed the physical to become a pilot. "When I doodled at school, I drew airplanes," Carnahan said. He had fainted during the blood test.

Attributing it to stress or fatigue, he begged for reconsideration but was turned down. He served his two Air Force years from mid-1954 to October 1956 at a desk, mostly with the department's Office of Special Investigation. The Korean War armistice was signed in July 1953. Because he had been inducted prior to the January 1955 deadline set by Congress, Carnahan qualified for Korean War benefits. The government paid for his law school years at the University of Missouri.

With a law degree in hand, he then looked for a rural Missouri home. Rolla fit the bill. "It was the largest town in my father's congressional district," Carnahan said. "I wanted to follow in my father's footsteps." But his father lost his congres Buy Dillard's "Christmas Collection 1999" and you'll be helping the Ronald McDonald House: Enjoy this unique collection of holidaycountry music performed by ten top country artists, and you'll be helping Ronald McDonald House provide a 'home away from home" for families of seriously III children. CDs and cassettes are available at Dillard's, and the profits from each purchase will be donated to the Ronald McDonald House in your area.

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