predecessor successor death_date birth_place death_place imagesize jr/sr party profession term_end birth_date term_start image article_title state name
rush d. holt , sr. . william r. laird , iii 28 february 1956 brown , west virginia national naval medical center , bethesda , maryland 150px united states senator democratic lawyer , judge , military february 28 , 1956 11 january 1893 january 3 , 1941 k000176.jpg harley m. kilgore
 west virginia harley martin kilgore
harley m. kilgore

harley martin kilgore -lrb- january 11 , 1893 -- february 28 , 1956 -rrb- was a united states senator from west virginia .
born in brown , west virginia , he attended the public schools and graduated from the law department of west virginia university at morgantown in 1914 and was admitted to the bar the same year .
he taught school in hancock , west virginia in 1914 and 1915 , and organized the first high school in raleigh county , west virginia in the latter year .
he was the school 's first principal for a year , and commenced the practice of law in beckley , west virginia in 1916 .
during the first world war he served in the infantry from 1917 and was discharged as a captain in 1920 ; in 1921 he organized the west virginia national guard and retired as a colonel in 1953 .
he was judge of the raleigh county criminal court from 1933 to 1940 , and was elected as a democrat to the u.s. senate in 1940 , and won re-election twice .
he was a member of the senate from january 3 , 1941 until his death in bethesda naval hospital in 1956 .
from october 1942 , he chaired the subcommittee on war mobilization of the military affairs committee , otherwise known as the kilgore committee , that oversaw u.s. mobilization efforts for world war ii .
he also helped establish the national science foundation in 1950 .
senator kilgore was west virginia 's favorite-son candidate in 1948 democratic presidential primaries and won his home state unopposed .
he died in 1956 , aged 63 and was interred in arlington national cemetery .
