HARRISBURG Ex-governor's letters document history

Casey served two terms as governor and also was state auditor.
HARRISBURG (AP) -- The family of late Pennsylvania Gov. Robert P. Casey has donated his personal items to the state's archives.
The massive collection, totaling about 90 cubic feet, includes hundreds of get-well cards, notes and letters that constituents sent Casey after he had a heart-liver transplant in 1993. Casey died in 2000 at age 68.
"The personal papers of Governor Casey are extremely important to us," state archivist Frank Suran said. "Historical records are the building blocks of history. They constitute our most important window to the past. We can't rely on secondhand accounts."
It will take several months to catalog Casey's personal collection, which includes a photograph from the 1987 Democratic Governors' Conference that shows Casey alongside Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Jesse Jackson and Dick Gephardt. Another photo features Casey dressed in a white lab coat and hard hat at a factory, laughing as cakes pass by on a conveyor belt.
The collection also includes videos, speeches, newspaper clippings, family photos and ceremonial plaques.
Casey, who also served as a state senator and auditor general in a political career spanning more than three decades, was elected governor in 1986 and served two terms.
R. David Myers, who served in the Casey administration and is now deputy chief of staff to Gov. Ed Rendell, called the donation "a testimony to a life given to public service."
Man of honor
Casey's son, Auditor General Bob Casey Jr., said that Pennsylvanians remember him as a man of honor.
"It was an integrity that was hard-earned over a lot of decades in the public life," Casey said. "It was hard-earned at a time when government and politicians were often, and in some cases still are, held in low regard."
The Casey gubernatorial collection is already catalogued and totals about 630 cubic feet, according to archives officials. The bulk of the collection -- totaling several million documents -- is available for public viewing.
Several items from Casey's gubernatorial collection were displayed last week, including a letter from then-presidential candidate Michael Dukakis, asking Casey for comments on some of his speeches.