Biden to attend Pell’s funeral

NEWPORT, R.I.—Vice President-elect Joe Biden is planning to attend funeral services for former Rhode Island Sen. Claiborne Pell, a blueblood who represented a working-class state and created federal education grants that helped millions of Americans afford college.

Pell died Thursday at his Newport home after a long battle with Parkinson’s disease. He was 90.

A spokeswoman for President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team said Biden, Pell’s Senate colleague and friend, plans to attend the funeral service 10 a.m. Monday at Trinity Episcopal Church in Newport.

A reception will follow at the Pell Center for International Relations and Public Policy at Salve Regina University. Burial will be private.

Gov. Don Carcieri has ordered state and U.S. flags in Rhode Island lowered in tribute until Monday, Jan. 12. A portrait of Pell will be on display in the Rhode Island State House, which will remain open over the weekend, through Jan. 12. It is on loan from the Pell Center.

Carcieri, a former math teacher, called Pell “one of this country’s greatest statesmen” and credited him with helping lower-and middle-class people seek higher education.

Pell, a Democrat, is best-known for sponsoring legislation creating the Basic Educational Opportunity Grant program, which passed in 1972. The awards, which provide direct aid to college students, were renamed “Pell Grants” in 1980. When Pell retired, they had aided more than 54 million low- and middle-income Americans.

Pell also sponsored a 1965 law establishing the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities. He left office in January 1997 after six terms.

Pell’s death prompted an outpouring of recollections from politicians, educators and others about the polite, quirky senator who represented Rhode Island for 36 years.

Former Sen. Lincoln Chafee said Pell would be remembered for his many, wide-ranging contributions to state and country, “from improved mass transit, to a better understanding of oceanography, to the most famous of all - the chance for a college education for so many Americans.“