CLEVELAND -- Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama calls the late U.S. Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones an extraordinary American and devoted public servant.

Obama said mourners gathered for Tubbs Jones' memorial service are honoring the way she used her intelligence, grace, spirit and compassion to help others.

Obama, U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, former President Bill Clinton and Gov. Ted Strickland are among hundreds remembering Tubbs Jones at Public Hall in downtown Cleveland.

Former President Clinton remembered the late U.S. Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones as someone who gave him "16 years of astonishing friendship."

Clinton says he first met Tubbs Jones in Cleveland in 1992 while campaigning for president and was immediately struck by the significance of her role as the county's first female prosecutor.

He joked that Tubbs Jones always had a long list of things the president "could improve on."

U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown and former U.S. Rep. Louis Stokes, who held Tubbs Jones' seat before she was elected, also made comments at Saturday's memorial service.

The 58-year-old Tubbs Jones died Aug. 20 from a brain hemorrhage caused by a ruptured aneurysm. She was the first black woman to represent Ohio in Congress.