Who is Bob Graham? Here’s what to know about the former Florida governor and senator

Former two-term Florida governor and three-term U.S. Sen. Bob Graham died Tuesday. He was 87.

Graham, who died of old age with his wife, Adele, and their family by his side in a retirement community in Gainesville, was celebrated for his "common man" approach to governing and his regular "work days" spending an entire day each month working different ordinary jobs with the press kept away.

Who is Senator Bob Graham?

You could say education and politics were in his blood. Daniel Robert Graham was born in Coral Gables on Nov. 9, 1936, the son of a schoolteacher (Hilda Elizabeth Simmons) and a Florida state senator, mining engineer and dairy farmer (Ernest "Cap" Graham).

Just barely, though. Ernest Graham was elected to the first of his two four-year terms just six days before Bob was born. Back at the cattle and dairy farm, Graham grew up raising livestock.

Bob Graham attended Miami Senior High School and received a bachelor's degree in 1959 in political science from the University of Florida and a Bachelor of Laws from Harvard Law School in 1962. He moved back to Miami and went into real estate development law just as Florida was experiencing another land boom.

While at UF, he met Adele Khoury and they married in 1959. Bob and Adele Graham, who also became a teacher, have four daughters.

Was Bob Graham a Florida Senator?

Graham, a Democrat, was a member of the Florida House of Representatives first, elected in 1966 to represent Dade County.

In 1970, he moved to the state Senate and was re-elected in 1972 and 1976. During his time, he chaired an education committee but turned down a potential appointment as Education Commissioner under then-Gov. Reubin Askew because he had bigger plans.

Was Bob Graham a Florida governor?

Graham, a relatively unknown candidate, won the governor's race in 1978 through nonstop campaigning and positioning himself, a rich, Harvard-educated lawyer, as a working man with his habit of working 8-hour days at different everyday jobs to meet constituents and get a better idea of what they did.

“Graham used the campaign for governor to radically change his persona from D. Robert Graham, button-downed Harvard lawyer and millionaire dairy farmer and land developer, to folksy, down-home ‘Bob,’ “ history professor Steven G. Noll wrote in "The Governors of Florida."

It worked. He won, and four years later he won again with a massive margin — nearly 800,000 votes — that no one has touched since.

What were Bob Graham's 'working days'?

When he was in the Senate, Graham talked to a frustrated teacher who said no one on his education committee had any experience in education. She arranged for him to teach a semester of civics at Carol City Senior High in Miami.

During his gubernatorial campaign, Graham worked at 100 different jobs across the state, carrying luggage, fishing for lobsters, picking tomatoes, shrimping, serving tables, cutting hair, picking up trash, paving roads, plumbing, and more. He was a social worker, he rode along with police, and he spent two days as a temporary worker and applied for food stamps. His last job, before the election, was housewife.

After his election, he continued the practice as governor and U.S. Senator, working Floridian's jobs one day a month. He always trained beforehand, worked an entire shift, kept the press away for all of it except a very limited portion, and did every part of the job. Ultimately, according to floridamemory.com, he worked 921 jobs in over 109 cities and five states.

What did Bob Graham do as governor of Florida?

During his two terms as Florida's 38th governor, Bob Graham was known for:

• Focusing on improving state universities, lowering class sizes, increasing teacher salaries and raising per-pupil spending from 21st to 13th in the country.
• Launching the largest environmental protection program in Florida history, bringing thousands of environmentally important lands under state control and establishing the Save the Everglades program.
• Working to improve the state's economy, which added 1.2 million jobs during his tenure, many of them in high-tech manufacturing.
• Expanding childcare and abuse prevention programs and service programs for the eldery.
• Presiding over 16 executions, including the first one in modern times.
• Working to get an anti-gay amendment declared unconstitutional.
• Activating 1,800 National Guard troops to move fuel during a trucker strike.
• Proposing the winning design for the collapsed Sunshine Skyway Bridge.

What is the Bob Graham Sunshine Skyway Bridge?

Decades before a container ship smacked into a Baltimore bridge and brought it down, part of the Sunshine Skyway Bridge over Tampa Bay collapsed in 1980 when a freighter hit a support column. Several cars and a Greyhound bus plunged into the water and 35 people were killed.

Graham's suggestion of building a cable-stayed bridge that was twice as wide won out. The design seemed to be sound: on the day before the original grand opening date in 1987, a shrimp boat struck the new bridge's protective bumpers without damage to the bridge.

While most residents just call it the Skyway, the official name is the Bob Graham Sunshine Skyway Bridge.

Was Bob Graham a U.S. Senator?

Graham's popularity got him into the U.S. Senate in 1986. where he served for 18 years. He became known as a consensus builder and an expert on both domestic issues like environmentalism and Everglades restoration but also foreign policy. He also continued working to improve education, authoring a bill to require testing for competency and progress in public schools.

He served 10 years on the Senate Intelligence Committee and was the chairman during 9/11. where he led investigations of the terror attacks. He was an outspoken critic of the Saudi government but voted against authorizing the invasion of Iraq, which he considered a distraction. Graham also was a primary author of the USA Patriot Act.

Who is Gwen Graham?

Gwen Graham, one of Bob and Adele's daughters, followed him into politics. She represented a 14-county North Florida Congressional district (which included Tallahassee) from 2015 to 2017, but chose not to seek a second term after redistricting made her district mostly Republican.

Instead, she ran for governor in 2018, ultimately losing to Ron DeSantis. In 2021, President Joe Biden named her to an advisory position in the Department of Education.

She's not the only famous Graham. Among Bob Graham's family, there's also:

• Philip Graham: Bob's half-brother, he was publisher and co-owner of The Washington Post and its parent company.
• Katherine Graham: Bob's sister-in-law and the first female publisher of a major American newspaper (The Washington Post) and the first woman elected to the board of the Associated Press.

The Grahams have four daughters: Gwen Graham, Cissy McCullough, Suzanna Gibson and Kendall Elias.

Did Bob Graham run for president?

Graham was often considered as a Vice President nominee and ran for the Democratic nomination in the 2004 presidential race, but he dropped out before the primaries a few months after he underwent heart surgery. He retired from the Senate in 2005.

In so doing, he also maintained his record: in his entire political career, Bob Graham never lost an election.

After his retirement, Graham spent a year at Harvard teaching citizenship and writing his first book, "America, the Owners Manual." He then established the Bob Graham Center for Public Service at the University of Florida "to create a community of students, scholars, and citizens who share a commitment to revitalizing the civic culture of Florida and the nation," according to the center's website.

Did Bob Graham write a book?

He wrote several.

• “America: The Owner’s Manual": A book about how the government works, for young readers.
• “Intelligence Matters": His account of his work with the Senate Intelligence Committee.
• “Keys to the Kingdom": A fiction novel about the Middle East.
• “Rhoda the Alligator”: A children's book based on stories he told his grandchildren.