Bob Whittaker
American politician
Robert Russell Whittaker (born September 18, 1939) is an American medical professional and former six-term U.S. representative from Kansas, serving from 1979 to 1991.
Early life
Whittaker was born in Eureka, Kansas, and was educated in the Greenwood County public schools. He attended the University of Kansas from 1957 to 1959, and Emporia State University during the summer of 1959. Whittaker earned his Doctor of Optometry degree (O.D.) from Illinois College of Optometry in 1962, and began practice as an optometrist. He was clinic director for the Kansas Low Vision Clinic in 1973.
Political career
Whittaker's first foray into politics was as precinct committeeman and member of the city planning commission from 1970 to 1974. He served in the Kansas House of Representatives from 1974 to 1977.
Congress
Whittaker was elected as a Republican to the Ninety-sixth and to the five succeeding Congresses (January 3, 1979 – January 3, 1991). He was not a candidate for renomination in 1990 to the One Hundred Second Congress.
Later career
After leaving Congress, he was hired as a senior legislative analyst at the Washington, D.C.-based lobbying and public relations firm Fleishman-Hillard.
“Bob Whittaker” enters the record as american politician. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Whittaker, American and politician can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Bob Whittaker” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Whittaker, American and politician provides the most credible route into that argument.
Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 26, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q888321. VIAF identifies the subject as 469178467129635190001. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1939, 1979, 1991 and 1957.
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This entry incorporates text from “Bob Whittaker” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.