H. Craig Lewis, 68, five-term state senator

H. CRAIG LEWIS, a former five-term Democratic Pennsylvania state senator, lawyer, business executive and civic leader, died of a heart attack Sunday while vacationing in the British Virgin Islands. He was 68 and lived in Feasterville.

Lewis represented the 6th District, encompassing Bucks County and a portion of Philadelphia, from 1972 to 1994. He was the minority leader of the Appropriations Committee until unseated in 1984 by since-disgraced Vince Fumo.

He married Dianne Semingson, Philadelphia commerce director and city representative in the Wilson Goode administration, in 1984.

Lewis' career was marked by a series of accomplishments in business and civic activities. He became regional vice president of the Norfolk Southern Corp., in 1997, a time when it was absorbing its share of Conrail, which was being split with the CSX Corp.

His job was to work with legislators in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware and New York City to ensure support of the company's plans for its share of Conrail.

Lewis had been associated with the city law firm of Dechert, Price and Rhoads since 1994.

He also worked as a lobbyist for Philip Morris, the tobacco company, in the late '90s.

Lewis was chairman of the board of the Philadelphia Foundation, which administers the coveted Liberty Medal Award, along with a number of grants to charitable organizations. He led the foundation's search committee in the late '90s.

In 2011, he was named to the board of the Philadelphia Zoo.

Although he won re-election to his state Senate seat four times with relative ease, Lewis was frustrated in his attempts at other elective offices. He lost a primary bid for the U.S. Senate in 1980, and lost a bid to unseat Republican Auditor General Barbara Hafer in 1992.

Lewis became a state senator fewer than four years after receiving his law degree from Temple University in 1968.

His accomplishments in the Senate included his fight with the Richard Thornburgh administration to release state financial data, ensuring legislative access to budget information.

Lewis also was a key figure in getting local tax reform passed by the Legislature in 1988, but the measure was defeated when put before the voters the following year.

He helped create and was the first chairman of the Senate Committee on Ethics. He also helped to establish the PACE program, which uses lottery revenues to subsidize prescription drugs for the elderly.

In endorsing Lewis for a new term in the Senate in 1986, the Inquirer's editorial board wrote, "For 12 years, Mr. Lewis has served Bucks County and the state well, tackling issues as local as poorly administered foreclosures and as broad as state judicial reform. On grounds of experience, integrity, productivity and political effectiveness, Mr. Lewis far and away is the better choice for Lower Bucks County and Pennsylvania."

He grew up in Hazelton. He graduated from Millersville University, the University of Nebraska graduate school, and Temple University's law school.

Information on survivors other than his wife was not immediately available Wednesday. Funeral services were pending.