This is a photograph showing Kansas Governor Robert Frederick Bennett (far right), in a committee meeting. Across the table is Richard Dean Rogers, a member of the Kansas State Senate from 1968 to 1975. On July 15, 1975, Rogers was nominated by President Gerald Ford to a seat on the United States District Court for the District of Kansas. Bennett was born in Kansas City, Missouri on May 23, 1927 and practiced law in Johnson County, Kansas. He held several local offices before winning election to the state senate in 1964. He was president of the senate when he won the Republican Party's 1974 gubernatorial nomination and the subsequent general election. This was the first election in which candidates for Kansas governor and lieutenant governor ran as a team and were elected to a four-year term instead of the traditional two-year terms. Bennett was an unsuccessful candidate for a second term in 1978. Afterwards, Bennett returned to his Johnson County law firm and home, where he died on October 9, 2000.
Kansas Memory
Kansas Historical Society
Kansas Governor Robert Frederick Bennett in a committee meeting