As former Sen. Bob Dole is laid to rest on Friday, let us not lay to rest important lessons we should draw from his life and leadership. Many of these are lessons I learned growing up, as he did, in the plains state of Kansas. But they are also things I observed working as an intern in his Senate office and keeping up with him over the years.

Raised in the small town of Russell, Kansas, where former Sen. Arlen Specter and billionaire Philip Anschutz were also reared, Dole was truly a Kansas conservative. Unfortunately, that political species is nearly extinct, emphasizing a pragmatic and values-centered conservatism, not the narrow political ideology many on the Right embrace today. It was how political philosopher Willmoore Kendall described his fellow Oklahomans: conservative “in their hips.” It was a Dwight D. Eisenhower (from Abilene, Kansas) conservatism that focused on virtues such as modesty, responsibility, and duty.