Nething
David Nething left a laudable lifelong legacy in his community, in the North Dakota Senate and at NCSL, where he served as president in 1985-86.
Nething, who was 91 when he died Dec. 2, preserved those memories in a series of four keepsake books he wrote and printed for his family, especially for his grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
“The whole focus of the books is for his grandchildren to have a history,” says Nething’s son, Scot. “They are the gifts that keep on giving.”
First elected to the North Dakota Senate in 1966, Nething served as Senate majority leader and president pro tem. When he retired in 2012, he was at the time the nation’s longest-serving Republican state senator. Away from politics he was an attorney.
Scot Nething says his father was particularly proud of his tenure at NCSL and of being the only North Dakota legislator to serve as president of the organization.
“He was a very good legislator and a very good leader,” says Bill Pound, who was NCSL’s executive director from 1987-2019.
“He was around when the Foundation for State Legislatures was just getting started. He provided a lot of leadership for that and did a lot to get it established. He was interested in the legislative process. It was his life in a lot of ways, and he was a good leader and a genuinely nice person, someone who was easy to work with. He put all of himself into it, a lot of enthusiasm and energy.”
As a leader, Nething was involved with a wide range of issues, including higher education policy; he was a former chairman of the Western Interstate Commission of Higher Education. His interest in telecommunications led him to sponsor legislation to provide telecommunication regulatory reform in North Dakota.
One of the family books he wrote, “Grandpa Dave and Grandma Marge — Lonesome Lovers — Alaska — Summer of 1961,” “was a compilation of the letters he and my mom sent back and forth when he was in Alaska,’’ Scot Nething says.
In the book’s dedication, Nething wrote of Marge, his wife of 69 years: “Throughout our life together, she has been my best friend and supporter. Starting with our first meeting, you need to realize whatever I accomplished, her presence and willingness to endure were ever present. Without her steady guidance, our lives would never have matured to the level we have enjoyed.”
Read more about David Nething’s life and career in the North Dakota Monitor, the Jamestown Sun and the Eddy Funeral Home obituary site.
Mark Wolf is a senior editor at NCSL.