(AP) -- COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) -- A new University of Missouri lecture series honors a young politician who died 26 years ago in a plane crash while campaigning for the U.S. Senate.

Jerry Litton was a rancher and two-term congressman from Chillicothe who died in 1976 with his wife and two children while flying to a Kansas City victory party after winning the state's Democratic primary for U.S. Senate.

The University's College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources and a Litton family foundation will host the inaugural Litton lecture on Monday at the Bond Life Sciences Center.

The speaker is farm broadcaster Orion Samuelson, a member of the National Radio Hall of Fame.

Litton, who died at age 39, was a Missouri graduate.

(Copyright ©2012 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)