Former Kansas Republican Senator Nancy Kassebaum Baker dead at 94

(NBC, KYMA) - Former U.S. Senator Nancy Kassebaum Baker has died at the age of 94.

Kassebaum Baker, the first woman elected to the U.S. Senate without following a spouse into office, died Friday of natural causes, according to her son.

The daughter of a Kansas governor, Kassebaum Baker, a moderate republican, was elected to the senate in 1979 and represented Kansas for 18 years.

She was also the first woman to chair a major Senate committee on Capitol Hill.

She married former senator and former Majority Leader Howard Baker, a Tennessee Republican, in 1996.

He died in 2014.