He has best been described as the sage and conscience of the U.S. Senate during a political career of nearly 58 years, but Robert C. Byrd will be remembered by West Virginians for his tireless effort in steering federal dollars to a state dubbed one of the nation’s poorest.

West Virginia has often been maligned by visiting 01journalists and made to feel like a nation’s stepchild, but Byrd upheld the state’s worth in many ways and tributes were coming thick and fast Monday in the wake of the death of this 92-year-old “treasure and icon.”

He took a lot of flak from critics who portrayed him as the personification of Congress‘ thirst for wasteful “pork” spending projects. His efforts will live on in the many highways (Corridor G - the Robert C. Byrd Freeway, for example) and the buildings in West Virginia that carry his name.

Byrd’s desk in the U.S. Senate chamber was draped in black, in recognition both of his longevity – he served longer and cast more votes than any senator in history – and the tenacity in which he defended the traditions and prerogatives of the Senate. A vase of yellow roses sat nearby.

The scene on C-Span and other TV channels Monday showed the Senate chamber waiting for the arrival of senators to participate in Monday’s beginning of Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Elena Hagan.

A family spokesman, Jesse Jacobs, reported that Byrd died at about 3 a.m. Monday at Inova Hospital in Fairfax, Va., outside the nation’s capital. He had been there since late last week and his death in such a short time was a shock to many although he had been in frail health for several years and recent days had seen aides bringing him in a wheelchair to Senate meetings.

President Barack Obama spoke of Byrd’s passion for the Senate and held the deepest respect for members of both parties. He said that Byrd was “as much a part of the Senate as the marble busts that line its chambers and corridors.”

Vice President Joe Biden, speaking earlier Monday in Louisville, Ky., remembered Byrd as a tough, compassionate leader and said the Senate “is a lesser place for his going.”

Biden spoke of Byrd being present when Biden was a 29-year-old kid being sworn into the U.S. Senate, “and shortly thereafter, a guy who stood in the pouring, freezing rain outside a church as I buried my daughter and my wife before I got sworn in.”

Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., and Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., gave glowing tributes to Byrd on whom they looked as a mentor, teacher, leader and constant source of inspiration.

Even Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, a West Virginia Republican, spoke of Byrd’s mastery 0000000000of the Senate but said “those who knew him best realize his legacy will be one of love for the West Virginians he served for nearly 57 years.”

Former President Jimmy Carter said “Sen. Robert Byrd and his wife, Erma, were our personal friends, and he was my closest and most valuable adviser while I served as president. I respected him and attempted in every way to remain in his good graces. He was a giant among legislators, and was courageous in espousing controversial issues.”

No one likes to talk about what happens now that there is a vacancy to fill in the U.S. Senate. Byrd was the Senate’s majority leader for six of the 51 years he served there and of great importance is that he was third in the line of succession to the presidency, behind House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

With his passing, the mostly honorary position of president pro tempore of the Senate goes to 85-year-old Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, now in his eighth term.

Various tributes were to Byrd for his care about the Constitution and of his role as defender of our constitutional government.

West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin, a Democrat, will appoint Byrd’s replacement in the Senate. The Associated Press reported Democratic sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to disclose confidential conversations, that Manchin had told associates in the past he was interested in the seat. However, the governor issued a statement Monday, advising the AP that he will not appoint himself to fill the seat, and had no timetable for naming a replacement.

Manchin described Byrd as “a fearless fighter for the Constitution, his beloved state and its great people.”

Many pointed to Byrd as often seeming a Senate throwback to a courtlier 19th century. He could recite poetry, quote the Bible, discuss the Constitutional Convention and detail the Peloponnesian Wars – and frequently did in Senate debates.

Byrd was a master of the Senate’s bewildering rules and longtime chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, which controls a third of the $3 trillion federal budget.

“Bob is a living encyclopedia, and legislative graveyards are filled with the bones of those who underestimated him,” former House Speaker Jim Wright, D-Texas, once said in remarks that Byrd later displayed in his office.

The Associated Press referred to Byrd’s habit of brandishing his copy of the U.S. Constitut8ion that he always carried in a pocket of his three-piece suit as he resisted any attempt to diminish the role of the Senate, as in the days leading up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq when he was one of the few to stand up against ceding

powers to President George W. Bush.

In 1971, Byrd ousted Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., as the Democrats’ second in command and five years later was elected majority leader. He held that post until the Democrats lost control of the Senate four years later. He remained his party’s leader through six years in the minority, then spent another two years as majority leader.

After stepping aside as majority leader in 1989 when Democrats sought a more contemporary television spokesman, Byrd’s consolation prize was the chairmanship of the Appropriations Committee, with control over almost limitless federal spending.

Within two years, he surpassed his announced five-year goal of making sure more than $1 billion in federal funds was sent back to West Virginia – money used to build highways, bridges, buildings and other facilities.

Byrd won an unprecedented ninth term in the Senate in 2006 with 64 percent of the vote and just months after surpassing South Carolinian Strom Thurmond’s record as the longest-serving member. His more than 18,500 roll call votes were another record.

The death of his wife, Erma, in 2006 after 69 years of marriage seemed to slow Byrd and by 2008 he surrendered his chairmanship of the Appropriations Committee.

Byrd opposed authorization of the United States’ involvement in war in Iraq and felt gratified when public opinion swung behind him. He cited Iraq when he endorsed then Sen. Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination in May 2008.

As a young man, he belonged to the Ku Klux Klan for a brief period and joined Southern Democrats against the landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act. He later apologized for both actions, saying intolerance has no place in America. While supporting later civil rights bills, he opposed busing to integrate schools.

In a measure of his tenacity, Byrd took a decade of night courses to earn a law degree in 1963, and received his bachelor’s degree at Marshall University in Huntington in 1994 with correspondence classes.

The senator was described as a near-deity in economically struggling West Virginia, to which he delivered countless federally financed projects. Entire government bureaus opened in this state, including the FBI’s repository for computerized fingerprint records and a Coast Guard facility.

Robert Carlyle Byrd was born Nov. 20, 1917 in North Wilkesboro, N.C. The youngest of five children, his birth name was Cornelius Calvin Sale Jr. Before he was one year old, his mother died and his father sent him to live with an aunt and uncle, Vlurma and Titus Byrd, who renamed him and moved to the coal-mining town of Stotesbury, W.Va. He was 16 years of age before learning his original name, and did not learn his real birthday until he was 54.

Byrd’s father was a miner who frequently changed jobs,and Byrd recalled that the family home was “without electricity, ... no running water, no telephone, a little wooden outhouse.”

He was graduated from high school but could not afford college. He married his high school sweetheart, Erma Ora James, in 1936, and they had two daughters. He pumped gas, cut meat and during World War II was a shipyard welder.

A grand dragon of the Ku Klux KIlan suggested he run for office and he won his first race, for the state’s House of Delegates, in 1946. He distinguished himself from 12 rivals by singing and fiddling mountain tunes. His fiddle became a fixture. He later played it on the TV show “Hee Haw” and recorded an album. He stopped playing after a grandson’s traumatic death in 1982 and when his shaky hands left him unable to play.

After six years in the West Virginia Legislature, Byrd was elected to the U.S. House in 1952, entering Congress as one of its most conservative Democrats. He was an early supporter of the Vietnam War, and his 14-hour, 13-minute filibuster against the 1964 civil rights bill remains one of the longest ever. His views moderated gradually but he always sided with his state’s coal interests in confrontations with environmentalists.

In 2004, Byrd got Congress to require schools and colleges to teach about the Constitution every Sept. 17, the day the document was adopted in 1787. His lodestar was protecting the Constitution. It may take a long time before his constituents forget the sight of Byrd pulling out a dog-eared copy of the Constitution from a pocket in one of his trademark three-piece suits.

“He was unmatched in his recognition of our obligation to the Constitution and to the institution of Congress itself,” said Rep. David Obey, D-Wis.

AP Writer Calvin Woodward described Byrd as West Virginia’s “most passionate scold, teacher, interpreter, defender and manipulator.”