Former mayor dies of cancer

Former Bloomington Mayor and U.S. Congressman Frank McCloskey always wanted to make sure his voice was heard.\nDuring a 12-day hospital stay that ended last week, McCloskey asked his friend Regina Moore, who was at his hospital bedside, to get an absentee ballot so he could vote in this year's election.\n"I don't know if I'll be around next week," Moore recalled him saying.\nWhile in the hospital, McCloskey voted by absentee ballot, but his vote won't count this year.\nMcCloskey died Sunday afternoon in his home after a year-long battle with bladder cancer. He was 64.\nJohn Irvine, former deputy mayor and a friend of McCloskey, said he will miss Frank's creative take on every situation.\n"I think what I'll miss most are his ideas," Irvine said. "He just was always filled with ideas about how to do new things and what needed to be done."\nBorn in 1939 in Pennsylvania, McCloskey served as a newspaper reporter for the IDS from 1961 until 1965, and the Herald Telephone, now the Herald Times, from 1965 to 1968. He obtained his law degree from the IU Law School in 1971, and served as mayor of Bloomington from 1972 to 1982.\nDuring his time in office, McCloskey implemented ambulance and mass transportation services and created civil rights and housing inspection programs. He also lobbied for federal funding to rehabilitate sub-standard housing.\nThe lifelong Democrat was elected to U.S. Congress in 1983. McCloskey continued his fight for six terms to help and educate Americans until 1995. One of his primary causes was the conflict in Kosovo and Bosnia-Herzegovina.\n"I think in some ways, his whole congressional career was permeated with a concern for what was going on in Kosovo," Irvine said. "Early on, he was very upset the Clinton administration would not get involved. He felt that if we didn't get involved, we were going to have a remaking of World War I."\nMcCloskey approached the situation early on with the idea that intervention was the best path. \n"Seeing it from a military perspective, it was a very humanitarian angle," Irvine said. "If we did not stop the hate and the fighting between the various factions, we could not hope for world peace."\nDan Combs, chairman of the Monroe County Democratic Party, a position McCloskey held from 1999 to July 2003, said he respected McCloskey's desires to make a difference in Bloomington and overseas.\n"He always wanted to do good. While in Congress, he wanted to do good so much, he got involved with Kosovo and Bosnia. That's where he knew he could make a difference," Combs said. "That's an attribute you don't find much often in politicians. Most politicians are out there pandering to the hometown crowds, but Frank didn't because he wanted those people over there to have a better life." \nMcCloskey was a family friend to Dan O'Neill, vice president of politics for the IU College Democrats.\n"I knew him very well and I have to say that people absolutely loved him," O'Neill said. "He was the chair for the Democratic Party until he became too sick to do the job. This really puts everything into perspective, especially at the time of the election. Frank fought for everybody. He saw the good in everyone. He's irreplaceable."\nFriends say memorial services are pending.\n-- Contact staff reporter Julia Blanford at jblanfor@indiana.edu.