SPRINGFIELD — The late former Gov. Jim Edgar was memorialized Saturday as a man whose compassion, integrity, and honesty showed he put people above politics and led Illinois as a model of what competent governance used to be — and should be — especially during today’s sharply partisan and divided times.

Edgar, a Republican who served two terms as the state’s 38th governor from 1991 to 1999 and a decade before that as secretary of state, died Sept. 14 , after having an adverse reaction to treatment for the pancreatic cancer he was diagnosed with in January. He was 79.

A bipartisan audience of more than 300 family, friends, former staff and agency directors, as well as past and current public officials, gathered Saturday at Central Baptist Church in the state’s capital to celebrate Edg

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