Thomas Kindness, 74; Represented Ohio in U.S. House

Thomas Kindness, 74, who represented southwestern Ohio’s 8th District in Congress from 1975 to 1987, died Thursday in Exeter, England, of unspecified causes.

A native of Knoxville, Tenn., Kindness studied at the University of Maryland and earned a law degree from George Washington University before settling in Hamilton, Ohio, to practice law.

The Republican spent well over two decades in political office, ending his career in a failed bid for the U.S. Senate against incumbent John Glenn in 1986. Four years later, Kindness, then a Washington foreign relations consultant, tried unsuccessfully to return to his old 8th District seat

Kindness served on the Hamilton City Council and was mayor in the 1960s. He served in the Ohio House of Representatives from 1971 to 1974, living and working in a camper on the Statehouse parking lot in Columbus. “You need a place to study things that require concentration,” he explained.