Jefferson Thomas, 67, one of the Little Rock 9

LITTLE ROCK - Jefferson Thomas, 67, who as a teenager was among nine black students to integrate a Little Rock high school in the nation's first major battle over school segregation, died Sunday of pancreatic cancer. Mr. Thomas died in an extended-care facility in Columbus, Ohio, said Carlotta Walls Lanier, who also enrolled at Central High School in 1957 and is president of the Little Rock Nine Foundation.

The integration fight was a first real test of the federal government's resolve to enforce a 1954 Supreme Court order outlawing racial segregation in the nation's public schools. After Gov. Orval Faubus sent National Guard troops to block Mr. Thomas and eight other students from entering Central High, President Eisenhower ordered in the Army's 101st Airborne Division. Soldiers stood in the school hallways and escorted each of the nine students as they went from classroom to classroom.

Each of the Little Rock Nine received Congressional Gold Medals shortly after the 40th anniversary of their enrollment. President Clinton presented the medals in 1999 to Mr. Thomas, Lanier, Melba Patillo Beals, Minnijean Trickey Brown, Elizabeth Eckford, Ernest Green, Gloria Ray Karlmark, Terrence Roberts, and Thelma Mothershed Wair.

Clinton lamented Mr. Thomas' departure in a statement he issued Monday, calling him "a true hero, a fine public servant, and profoundly good man."

"America is a stronger, more diverse, and more tolerant nation because of the life he lived and the sacrifices he made," Clinton said.

In 2008, then President-elect Obama sent Mr. Thomas and other members of the Little Rock Nine special invitations to his inauguration as the nation's first black president. During his campaign, he had said the Little Rock Nine's courage in desegregating Central High helped make the opportunities in his life possible.

"Even at such a young age, he had the courage to risk his own safety, to defy a governor and a mob," Obama said. "Our nation owes Mr. Thomas a debt of gratitude for the stand he took half a century ago, and the leadership he showed in the decades since."

Mr. Thomas played a number of sports and was on the track team at Dunbar Junior High before going on to Central, the state's largest high school.

Born Sept. 19, 1942, Mr. Thomas was the youngest of seven children. After graduation, he served in the U.S. Army in Vietnam. He earned a bachelor's degree in business administration from Los Angeles State College and was an accounting clerk with the Department of Defense, retiring in 2004.

After the 2008 election, Mr. Thomas said in an interview that he supported Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Ohio primary and that he also liked former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who made a bid for the Republican nomination. "It would have been a hard decision for me to make if Huckabee was running against Obama," Mr. Thomas added. Still, he said, he was overjoyed with Obama's victory.

"This was really the nonviolent revolution," Mr. Thomas said. "We went and cast our ballots, and the ballots were counted this time."