Ike Skelton Isaac Newton Skelton IV (born December 20, 1931), an American politician, has been a member of the United States House of Representatives since 1977. He represents the fourth Congressional district (map) of the state of Missouri. Skelton was born in Lexington, Missouri. He graduated from Lexington High School, Lexington, Mo., in 1949, He received an A.A. from Wentworth Military and Junior College in 1951. He received an A.B. from the University of Missouri, Columbia in 1953 and became a brother of Sigma Chi and Alpha Phi Omega while there. He attended the University of Edinburgh, Scotland in 1953. He received an LL.B. from University of Missouri - Columbia in 1956. He became a lawyer, working in private practice in Lafayette County, Mo. He was a prosecuting attorney from 1957 until 1960, a special assistant attorney general, and Missouri state attorney general from 1961 until 1963.
The ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, Skelton represents Missouri's state capitol, Jefferson City, and also Lamar, Missouri, which is the birthplace of the 33rd President, Harry Truman, whom Skelton met as a young man and admired.
Skelton was a member of the Missouri State Senate from 1971 until 1977, when he became a congressman. He is a member of the United States Democratic Party, and recently won a 15th two-year term in the United States House of Representatives in the elections of November 2004.
His wife of 44 years, Susan Anding Skelton, died on August 23, 2005. Later that year, on November 26, Skelton was injured when a van carrying him and fellow Congressmen Tim Murphy and Jim Marshall overturned near Baghdad Airport while on an official visit to Iraq. Skelton and Murphy were airlifted to a US Military hospital in Germany after complaining of neck pain. Both made a full recovery.
