Alvin Morell Bentley - Career During The 1960s

Career During The 1960s

From 1961 to 1962, Bentley was a delegate from the 15th Senatorial District to the Michigan State Constitutional Convention, which produced the Michigan state constitution adopted in 1963. In 1962, Bentley again ran for the U.S. House for a one-term, at-large seat created as a result of the 1960 U.S. Census, but he lost in the general election to Democrat Neil Staebler. He continued public service by receiving appointments to education-related positions in the state. Also, after leaving Congress in 1961, he had returned to the University of Michigan as a graduate student in the History department.

Alvin M. Bentley served on the Board of Directors for the National Conference on Citizenship in 1960.

While continuing to maintain offices in Washington, D.C., Bentley commuted by air to Ann Arbor to attend classes. He received an M.A. degree in 1963. In 1966, while pursuing a doctoral degree, Governor George W. Romney appointed him to the board of regents of the University of Michigan.

He died, aged 50, while on vacation in Tucson, Arizona of an "inflammation affecting the central nervous system". Bentley had been confined at a wheelchair for two years after "corrective surgery" when his condition suddenly worsened. He is interred in Oak Hill Cemetery in Owosso, Michigan.