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Ike Skelton, 81; served 17 terms in US House

Ike Skelton served as chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. Associated Press/file/2005

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Democrat Ike Skelton, who built a reputation as a military expert and social conservative during 34 years representing western and central Missouri in the US House, died Monday in Virginia. He was 81.

Longtime colleague Russell Orban confirmed the death. The cause was not immediately released, but Orban said Mr. Skelton entered the hospital a week earlier with a bad cough.

A former prosecutor in his native Lexington, Mo., Mr. Skelton joined the national Kansas City-based law firm of Husch Blackwell following his 2010 defeat in Missouri’s Fourth Congressional District by Republican Vicky Hartzler, a state lawmaker who had strong Tea Party backing.

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Mr. Skelton worked for the firm in both Kansas City and Washington, D.C., and maintained homes in Lexington and the Washington suburb of McLean, Va.

Mr. Skelton won the first of 17 congressional terms in 1976 and was chairman of the House Armed Services Committee at the time of his loss to Hartzler.

An astute military historian, Mr. Skelton helped build up Missouri’s two military installations.

As Whiteman Air Force Base near Knob Noster was losing its cache of long-range nuclear missiles, Mr. Skelton secured its future in the late 1980s by getting the Defense Department to place the new B-2 bomber there.

After redistricting made Mr. Skelton the representative for Missouri’s Fort Leonard Wood in 1983, the number of troops undergoing training there more than quadrupled and the post’s mission expanded from the Army to all branches of military service.