Sens. Scott Sifton and Eric Schmitt remembered Charles McClain Monday afternoon.
McClain, 83, died last Thursday at his home in Columbia. His funeral will be at 2 p.m. Thursday at the Missouri United Methodist Church, Columbia.
"The state lost one of its leading citizens late last week," Sifton, D-St. Louis, said, "the former president of Truman State University - the man who made that institution what it is today."
McClain was president of the Kirksville school from 1970-89.
Sifton graduated from Truman in 1996.
Schmitt, R-Glendale, who graduated from Truman in 1997, added: "You and I and many others are beneficiaries of his vision of what higher education could be.
"And, in an area where it's really hard to make that kind of systemic change, he did something at a school - when it was Northeast Missouri State - he talked about a statewide mission and a liberal arts university."
Originally founded in the 1800s as a state teacher-training school, McClain helped lead the effort to transform the school into the statewide "liberal arts university."
"They drastically reduced the number of majors that they had, to provide more of a focus," Schmitt explained. "It's now the state's only highly selective public institution - not just keeping good students from Missouri, here, but attracting students from other parts of the country."
In 1963, McClain was the founder and first president of Jefferson College, Hillsboro, a two-year community college.
After leaving Truman, he headed the state's Higher Education department.
In 1995, he married Missouri Supreme Court Chief Justice Ann Covington, who survives in Columbia.
In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions are suggested to the Charles J. McClain Scholarship Fund at Truman State University, Kirksville, Mo., 63501.
"I would respectfully submit that he is about as good of a role model as one could possibly find for making your life an impactful one in service to others," Sifton said Monday afternoon,