FRANKFORT — Walter Baker, the Glasgow Republican admired widely by members of both parties who served in the state legislature, as a Justice on the state Supreme Court and in the Reagan administration, died Monday at his home after a lengthy illness. He was 73.



Baker was known as a statesman who “did what he thought was right,” often working across party lines and sometimes opposing his own party on the major issues of the day. He had a life-long passion for education and learning. His hero was John Sherman Cooper, the patrician Republican U.S. Senator from Somerset whom Baker met when he was 9 years old, saying Cooper became his hero and in many ways his model in his own public career. First elected to the state legislature in 1967 from Barren County, Baker participated in some of the most important legislation of the past half century, including the Kentucky Education Reform Act.



“He was a John Sherman Cooper statesman in every sense of the word,” said former Gov. Paul Patton who appointed Baker to the state Supreme Court. “He recognized there was a need for government and at times there was a need to support government, yet he was a conservative who didn’t want government to do more than it should.”



Former Gov. Julian Carroll, like Patton a Democrat, said Baker “was a gentleman’s gentleman. He had friends on both sides of the political aisle. Walter Baker was a Kentucky statesman, respected by everyone on both sides of the aisle.”



“I remember him as the most honest and conscientious judge I ever served with,” said former state Supreme Court Chief Justice Joseph Lambert who served with Baker on the court. “He desperately wanted to be fare to all litigants and make sure his vote on the court represented his obedience to the law and served justice in the case before him.”



Sen. Mitch McConnell knew Baker for years and shares an admiration for Cooper for whom McConnell once served as intern.



“He was an independent thinker with a strong conviction for doing what he thought was right for the people of Kentucky.  The Commonwealth has lost a great advocate and Elaine and my thoughts are with his family,” McConnell said.



Baker served in the state House, elected in 1967 along with his fellow Barren County Republican Louie B. Nunn who became governor. Baker voted for Nunn’s increase in the sales tax and later voted for the 1990 Kentucky Education Reform Act as a state Senator.



In 1981, President Ronald Reagan appointed Baker Assistant General Counsel for International Affairs in the U.S. Department of Defense, a position he held until 1983. He served as Judge Advocate for the Kentucky Air National Guard from 1961 to 1981, rising to the rank of Lt. Colonel.



In 1996, Patton appointed Baker to fill a vacancy on the Kentucky Supreme Court but he was defeated for election to a full term that fall by William Cooper. Lambert said it was a bitter disappointment for Baker. Lambert said he warned Baker he was spending too much time reading cases and not enough campaigning.



“I told him, you need to get out and campaign,” Lambert recalled. “He would say, but I’ve got work to do. He would never sacrifice his work requirements in favor of getting out to campaign.”



Baker re-opened his law practice in Glasgow and in 1997, Patton appointed Baker to the Postsecondary Council on Education after passage of the 1997 Higher Education Reform Act and he served on the council until 2008. In 1974, he ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Congress, losing to the incumbent Democratic icon William H. Natcher.



Baker also was selected by the U.S. Information Agency in 1995 to advise dumas – parliaments – in Tomsk and Niznhi Novgorod, Russia on writing their constitutions and how the legislative process works.



Baker was born Feb. 20, 1937 in Columbia, Ky., the son of Herschell T. Baker, a member of the General Assembly. His grandfather, Herschell Clay Baker also served in the state legislature. After graduating from Adair County High School in 1954, Baker won a scholarship to Harvard, but according to his childhood friend and later Speaker of the House in the General Assembly, Jody Richards, had no car and hitch-hiked back and forth to Boston.



He graduated from Harvard Magna Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa, in 1958 and from Harvard Law School in 1961. He began his law practice in Louisville but moved to Glasgow in 1963.  He is survived by his wife, Jane Helm Baker; a son, Tom Baker of Austin, Texas; a daughter, Anne Baker Phillips and her husband Rip Phillips of Louisville; and his granddaughter, Baker Elizabeth Phillips.



Arrangements are pending but are under the direction of the A. F. Crow and Sons Funeral Home in Glasgow.



Ronnie Ellis writes for CNHI News Service and is based in Frankfort, Ky. He may be contacted by email at rellis@cnhi.com. Follow CNHI News Service stories on Twitter at www.twitter.com/cnhifrankfort.