Tester moving up…stairs

Frank Church, John Glenn, Everett Dirksen among list of previous occupants of freshman senator’s new digs

(WASHINGTON, D.C.) – Sen. Jon Tester has been assigned permanent office space in the historic Russell Senate Office Building and will soon move out of his temporary quarters in the basement of the Dirsken building.

Tester and his staff will occupy a suite of offices on the second and third floors of the Russell building.  Tester said he and his staff will move into their new space in late March. 

Tester said he was honored to learn he'd be moving into an office once occupied by Sen. Frank Church of Idaho and former Ohio senator John Glenn. 

"Not a day goes by that I am not reminded of the awesome responsibility of this job and those who have walked these halls before me," Tester said.  "The opportunity to work for my state in the same room that Frank Church and John Glenn worked for theirs is a special honor."

Church, who served in the Senate from 1957 to 1981, is often remembered for his role in creating much of the country's protected wilderness areas, including the River of No Return Wilderness, near the Montana/Idaho border, which has since been renamed the Frank Church – River of No Return   Wilderness.

Glenn served Ohio from 1977 to 1999 but is perhaps better remembered as the first American to orbit the earth in 1962.  He is also the oldest person to have entered orbit, having flown into space in 1998 aboard a Space Shuttle Discovery mission at age 77. 

From 1953 to 1967, Tester's office was home to Everett Dirksen.  Tester's transitional offices are in the basement of the building named after the Illinois Republican and former Senate Majority Leader.

Built more than 100 years ago, the Russell Senate Office Building has played host to some of the most famous events in Senate history, including hearings on the sinking of the Titanic in 1912, the Army-McCarthy Hearings in 1954, and the Watergate investigation in 1973.  It was also the setting for the Frank Capra's 1939 film, "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington."