© 2024 St. Louis Public Radio
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Missouri Rep. Rebecca Roeber Dies; Ex-Educator From Lee's Summit Pushed For Charter School Expansion

Missouri State Rep. Rebecca Roeber with a student during the 2017 Undergraduate Research Day in Jefferson City.
University of Missouri System/Creative Commons
Missouri State Rep. Rebecca Roeber with a student during the 2017 Undergraduate Research Day in Jefferson City.

Missouri state Rep. Rebecca Roeber, a Republican from Lee's Summit, died Tuesday in her sleep. 

Doug Thaman, the executive director of Missouri Charter Schools Association, confirmed Roeber's death to KCUR. Missourinet reported that she was on vacation in Colorado.

Roeber was in her third term in the House, had backed charter school expansion and was the vice chairman of the Elementary and Secondary Education committee.In March, Roeber fell asleep at the wheel of her car and was seriously injured, with the Kansas City Star reporting that she broke 18 bones. But she was recovering, and told the Missouri Times in April that there were “issues I am not done with,” and that she not only planned to return to the Capitol for the 2020 legislative session, but also announced on Facebook that she was running for re-election. 

Missouri Speaker of the House Elijah Haahr issued a statement on Twitter, saying Roeber “had a passion to see our children learn and succeed in life.”

And Rep. Greg Razer, a Democrat from Kansas City, kept Roeber's family on his mind.

Roeber’s official legislative profile says she graduated from Shawnee Mission West High School in Overland Park, Kansas, and was a teacher in Raytown before being elected to the Missouri House in 2014. 

Thaman worked closely with Roeber, describing her as warm, open, a good listener and deliberate. 

“She was a classroom teacher for many years and then during her time in the House of Representatives she really championed passionately any issue that had to do with children and education,” he said. 

Republican Sen. Mike Cierpiot, who represents eastern Jackson County, said Roeber had a heart of gold and wanted to improve outcomes for students in poor-performing schools.

“People just hold her in such high esteem. I think her legacy is going to be the efforts she made in education,” Cierpiot said. “I think she moved the ball down the road a lot.”

Cierpiot said he remembers watching Roeber going door-to-door introducing herself to voters.

“She had so many yard signs,” Cierpiot said. “People just loved her.”

This is a breaking news story and will be updated.

Aviva Okeson-Haberman is the Missouri government and politics reporter at KCUR 89.3. Follow her on Twitter: @avivaokeson

Copyright 2020 KCUR 89.3. To see more, visit .

When Aviva first got into radio reporting, she didn’t expect to ride on the back of a Harley. But she’ll do just about anything to get good nat sounds. Aviva has profiled a biker who is still riding after losing his right arm and leg in a crash more than a decade ago, talked to prisoners about delivering end-of-life care in the prison’s hospice care unit and crisscrossed Mid-Missouri interviewing caregivers about life caring for someone with autism. Her investigation into Missouri’s elder abuse hotline led to an investigation by the state’s attorney general. As KCUR’s Missouri government and state politics reporter, Aviva focuses on turning complicated policy and political jargon into driveway moments.