Estimated read time: 5-6 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
SALT LAKE CITY — Everyone has their own words to describe Robert F. Bennett: Senator. Businessman. Father. Friend.
But the word used most often on Saturday during a funeral service for the three-term U.S. senator was "servant."
Family and friends were joined by political dignataries at the Saturday service held in the Federal Heights Ward chapel and presided over by President Henry B. Eyring, first counselor in the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Elder M. Russell Ballard of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles also attended and spoke at the service.
"It can truthfully be said that Senator Robert F. Bennett was a servant leader," said former Utah governor and longtime friend Mike Leavitt.
Recalling how Bennett once stopped to talk to two young elementary school students in the U.S. Capitol even as he was rushing to a final vote, Leavitt said it was Bennett's sense of service that impressed his Senate colleagues who "not only liked him, but trusted him."
Son Robert M. Bennet said his father brought that sense of service to his role in the family.
He recalled what the aging senator told his granddaughter when she asked about his proudest achievement: Without hesitation, the elder Bennett replied, "Marrying your grandmother. That's how much family meant to dad," he said.
President Eyring said Bennett's legacy as a "true disciple of Jesus Christ" would outlast even his considerable roles as the senator who helped create TRAX or the CEO who led FranklinCovey.
President Eyring was a longtime friend of Bennett’s — so long that he recalled being in a high school skit together in which they portrayed the comedy duo Martin and Lewis.
He said his friend was no stranger to criticism, but he always accepted and examined it “openly and carefully. You have in Robert Bennett an example of a true disciple of Jesus Christ,” President Eyring said.
Growing more emotional, President Eyring recalled how Bennett gave a talk about his unwavering testimony of The Book of Mormon at a fireside chat the day before his stroke.
His voice broke as he quoted Book of Mormon scripture from Moroni 10:34: "And now I bid unto all, farewell. I soon go to rest in the paradise of God, until my spirit and body shall again reunite, and I am brought forth triumphant through the air, to meet you before the pleasing bar of the great Jehovah, the Eternal Judge of both quick and dead. Amen.”
President Eyring also read a letter from LDS Church President Thomas S. Monson, who offered condolences to the Bennett family. President Monson called Bennett an exceptional leader who brought honor and distinction to Utah.
Elder M. Russell Ballard in his remarks praised Bennett as a man of unwavering faith and moral character.
After the service, former Massachusetts governor and Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney called Bennett a "true statesman" and "voice of reason that cut through the clutter of politics and contention."
Utah Gov. Gary Herbert, who also attended the service, called Bennett "a good example to all of us of what we can become, what we should do and how we should treat each other."
Bennett brought a calming force to his family of six children and 20 grandchildren, according to daughter Wendy Prawitt. In particular, Prawitt recalled her father's lifelong devotion to her mother, Joyce.
"He would come home and she would be in the kitchen making dinner... and he would put his things down and walk straight to the kitchen and just take her in hs arms and just hold her for a minute," she recalled. "And then he would roll up his sleeves and start to make the salad."
Prawitt also recalled her father's silly side — his habit of bursting into song, the time she caught him using her hula hoop, or the way he would hold the children at bay with his long arms when they would tickle him.
At night, Prawitt and her siblings would gather on their parents' large king bed and tell stories late into the night, she said.
After Bennett suffered a stroke and an aggressive recurrence of pancreatic cancer, those gatherings moved to a hospital bed — one that was too short for her father's famous 6-foot-6 frame, Prawitt said.
“Because of him my capacity to love has increased," she said. "Because of my father my testimony of Jesus Christ and atonement has increased. Because of him my testimony of the resurrection has increased.”
"There is no doubt in my mind I will see my father again, and he will put those big arms around me and I will hug his waist as he takes me in his arms," she added.
John Baird, a longtime friend and former colleague, said Bob Bennett faced setbacks — including his 2010 defeat at a state party convention — with patience and dignity.
"Of course he was hurt," Baird said. "What human being going through that would not be hurt? But he understood that. He did not let it define him. He was bigger than it."
In his closing, son Robert M. Bennett recounted a story from a close family friend about his father's three responses when he would meet people: "Nice to you see you" if he didn't know you. "There you are" if you looked familiar. And "You, I know" if you were a friend.
"Dad has gone to the other side," Robert M. Bennett said. "He's meeting other people, some for the first time, and he’ll say, 'Nice to see you.' There are others he's familiar with that he’ll say, 'There you are.'"
"When he sees the Savior," he said, "there is no doubt in my mind that he will say, ‘You, I know.’”
Contributing Ashton Goodell
