The recent passing of Ellen Armstrong, the wife of the late, great U.S. Sen. Bill Armstrong, marks the end of an era that seems so lacking in Colorado today on both sides of the political spectrum.

There was no ambiguity about the public role she was about to play in her life when she married a 25-year-old radio station owner and executive on July 15, 1962, a week after he was nominated as a Republican candidate for the Colorado House of Representatives from Aurora. For the next 28 years, she served Colorado with class and grace as Armstrong was elected as a state representative, state senator, congressman and U.S. senator.

Anyone who worked on Armstrong’s successful campaigns or who worked for him in the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate knew the quiet but powerful presence she had in his public life. As popular as Armstrong was as an elected official, she figured prominently in the minds of those who supported Bill and Ellen’s long march through life in the public arena.

Ellen was born on the sweeping plains of Wyoming to a poor, struggling family. Her father abandoned her mother and siblings before they moved to Chadron, Nebraska where her beloved mother kept the family together. She eventually became a flight attendant for Western Airlines and moved to Denver where she met the young business executive who owned the KOSI radio station in Aurora. She completed her degree at the University of Denver when Bill was in the legislature.

When Ellen took to the skies she had no idea how her life’s horizons would go well beyond those she could see from the plane. 

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Bill Armstrong was the youngest person to be elected to the Colorado House of Representatives and later he became the youngest person to serve as the Colorado state Senate majority leader. He was elected to Congress from the newly created 5th Congressional District in 1972. He unseated a Democratic incumbent when he was elected as a U.S. Senator in 1978. He was reelected in 1984 with 64% of the vote and he carried 60 out of 63 counties, including heavily Democratic Denver and Pueblo.

Ellen threw herself into her role as the wife of a congressman and senator while raising their two children, Anne and Wil. She chaired the 1976 First Lady’s Congressional Luncheon and befriended First Ladies Betty Ford, Roslyn Carter, Nancy Reagan and Barbara Bush.  She was involved in several other bipartisan congressional organizations including the Senate Spouses Club, which is a Red Cross unit founded in 1917 that hosts blood drives.

Her Christian faith was the center of her life and she had a special interest in the persecution of Christians and Jews, especially with human rights abuses in the Soviet Union. She traveled with Bill to Russia to meet with refuseniks who wanted to leave the oppression of the Soviet state.

When Bill left the Senate after two terms in 1991, he eventually became president of Colorado Christian University, where Ellen had served on the board of trustees. Just like her years in Washington, D.C., she had her own special presence as the “first lady” of the university.

Bill Armstrong died in 2016 and with Ellen’s passing, a special era of public service essentially has ended. They exemplified the dignity all public officials should aspire to, and they showed it in how they treated those they served in the public arena whether they agreed with them or not.

Make no mistake about it, Bill and Ellen Armstrong were strong conservative Republicans but they never treated people who came from different political perspectives as enemies who should be banished. 

Both parties are increasingly influenced by shrill, extreme voices from the left and the right. I know the Republican Party needs more leaders like Bill and Ellen Armstrong within its ranks. Unfortunately, there are those in my party today who denigrate the special brand of leadership they exemplified.

As attested by the thousands of Coloradans who walked a precinct or put up an Armstrong yard sign or who had the special honor of working for him in Congress and the United States Senate, Bill and Ellen Armstrong will always be the gold standard of public service.

Dick Wadhams is a former Colorado Republican state chairman who worked for U.S. Sen. Bill Armstrong for nine years in the U.S. Senate.