Robert Ball wasn't a resident of rural America, but what he did helped every rural community. Bob Ball was the fellow who protected Social Security for the past 30 years, and on January 30th he died at the age of 93.

Tom Bethell, a former reporter for The Mountain Eagle in Whitesburg, Kentucky, was a friend and colleague of Ball, writes about him in The Baltimore Sun. It's a short history of Social Security and a tribute to a man who worked most of his life to protect a program that has benefited millions of Americans.

In Bethell's telling, Ball figured out ways to save Social Security three times in the last 30 years. He helped engineer a compromise in 1983 that set Social Security on sound financial footing. And at age 91, Ball led the opposition to President Bush's proposal to privatize the program. To find out more about Bob Ball, you can visit his website, here.