In 1989, he was elected president pro tempore of the Senate -- a largely ceremonial post -- and named chairman of the Appropriations Committee. It was there that he began funneling federal projects and money to West Virginia in earnest. The first big salvo came in 1991, when FBI officials announced they would build their new fingerprint identification center just outside Clarksburg.Sen. Byrd has been instrumental in making the I-79 development corridor a hotbed of biometrics-based entrepreneurship. He will be missed.
Monday, June 28, 2010
Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia dead at 92
From the Charleston Gazette (WV)
