UPDATED. Spare a Thought For a Connecticut Treasure.

Wally Barnes is unwell. The 94 year old business, civic and political veteran from Bristol is ill. If you pray, say a prayer for him. If you don’t pray, send something out into the ether.

Wally, a classic moderate Republican, ran for Congress against Tom Dodd in 1954–and lost, though party leaders had told him it would be a Republican year. He went on to serve in the state Senate, becoming the minority leader for the 1969-1970 session. In 1970, Wally was the challenger in the first Republican primary for governor. He lost to New Britain Republican Thomas Meskill, who had been elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1966.

Though he would not run for office again, Wally Barnes has filled the fifty years that followed with service to the state and the nation.

Wally has spent much of the pandemic in Washington with his wife, Barbara Franklin. They became Daily Ructions readers last year. They will know by this post and in many other ways that they are on our minds and we are grateful for their long devotion to service and for always being interesting.

UPDATE: Wally Barnes died Thursday. He was 94 years old. Read more here. Chris Healy offers a warm tribute. It is one of Wally Barnes’s remarkable accomplishments that 50 years after his last campaign he continued to forge friendships with new generations political and civic leaders and activists. His interest in others and the world around him never waned.