State mourns Gov. Frank O'Bannon

Indiana Gov. Frank O'Bannon, who died Saturday after suffering a massive stroke one week ago, will be remembered this week at ceremonies in the Statehouse and his hometown of Corydon, Ind.\nO'Bannon's portrait and personal items will be on display in the rotunda of the Statehouse Thursday. The public is invited to file past and write a message in a memorial book.\nOn Friday, an interfaith service will take place on the same Statehouse steps where O'Bannon was inaugurated in 1997. In Corydon, services are being planned for Saturday and Sunday. \nO'Bannon, 73, died at Northwestern Memorial Hospital at 11:33 a.m. Saturday, with his wife by his side. He had shown steady signs of improvement at the Chicago hospital where he was being treated. But late Friday night, his health deteriorated. The swelling in his brain increased, which in turn caused his blood pressure and heart rate to drop.\nEfforts to stabilize the governor, including additional medication and the draining of spinal fluids, were unsuccessful, doctors said Saturday.\nAfter a personal discussion with the attending physicians, the governor's wife, Judy, asked that life support for her husband be discontinued, a wish O'Bannon himself had expressed in his living will. \nThe doctors then withdrew medications that had been used to maintain the governor's blood pressure.\nFifteen minutes later, O'Bannon died.\nNews of the governor's death stunned Hoosiers across the state, many of whom had thought O'Bannon would pull through after surviving the crucial 48 hours following his brain surgery. \n"A lot of people were very hopeful," said Mary Dieter, O'Bannon's press secretary. "The doctors had warned us all along that strokes are totally unpredictable, so although we were shocked, perhaps we should not have been. When you care about someone, you tend to latch onto the best news, and I suspect that's what a lot of Hoosiers did." \nThough he had remained stable for much of the week, in the end, O'Bannon's stroke was just too severe, said Dr. William Peruzzi, chief neuroscientist at NMH. Nearly the entire right side of O'Bannon's brain was damaged by the stroke. \n"There really wasn't anything else we could have done," Peruzzi said at a press conference. \nO'Bannon's body will be cremated and his ashes buried in Cedar Hill Cemetery in Corydon.\nSaturday night, Lt. Gov. Joe Kernan was sworn in as Indiana's 48th governor in the chambers of the Indiana Supreme Court. \nWith his left hand resting on a family Bible, Kernan took the oath of office from Supreme Court Justice Theodore Boehm. Kernan vowed to lead Indiana "to the best of my skill and ability, so help me God." \nStanding solemnly in front of a Statehouse audience, the new governor reflected on his friendship with O'Bannon. He spoke on the trade mission to Europe they took together in 1990, the day in 1996 when O'Bannon asked him to be his running mate and the events that have thrust him into the role of Indiana's executive. \n"(O'Bannon) lived his life to the fullest in the service of the people of the state of Indiana," Kernan said. "I have lost my governor and my friend. So too has every Hoosier lost their governor and their friend."\nKernan will serve out the rest of O'Bannon's term, which lasts until December 2004.\nO'Bannon dedicated the last 35 years of his life to serving Indiana. He spent seven years as governor, eight as lieutenant governor and 18 years as a state senator from Corydon, Ind. \nHe received a bachelor's degree in government in 1952 from IU. After serving two years in the Air Force, he returned to Bloomington to earn his law degree in 1957.\n-- Contact senior writer Adam VanOsdol at avanosdo@indiana.edu.