Phil Rock, Long-Time State Senate President, Dies

(CBS) -- Illinois' longest-serving state Senate president has died.

Phil Rock, a Democrat who led the chamber from 1979 to 1993, passed away Thursday at 78.

He's well remembered today as a mentor and as a bipartisan man.

"It's very possbile to have friendships across the aisle. It's possible to have friendships with people who you disagree with," said Ed Wojcicki of Springfield. "If you agree on the end goal, and that is to make good things happen and to find solutions, it still is possible, and it still is happening behind the scenes," though it's usually unreported.

A few years ago, Wojcicki wrote a book with Rock, "Nobody Calls Just to Say Hello"

Rock's fellow Oak Parker Don Harmon, himself now a longtime Democratic state senator, said in a statement,

"Phil Rock is a giant in Illinois politics. His ability to get things done and his unerring sense of fairness should be the standard to which all of us in politics hold ourselves," Harmon said.

"I will always be grateful for his kindness, his decency and his sense of duty to encourage young people to engage in politics. He devoted his public life to make Illinois a better and more humane place for all of us, and he succeeded."