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CLICK BELOW TO HEAR JACK HALL’S INTERVIEW WITH ESCANABA MAYOR MARC TALL
CLICK BELOW TO HEAR JACK HALL’S INTERVIEW WITH STATE REP. BEAU LAFAVE
Former Upper Peninsula state senator and state representative Tom Casperson has died at the age of 61.
Casperson was diagnosed with Stage Four lung cancer in May of 2018. He continued to battle the disease for more than two years, at one point in 2019 declaring himself cancer-free, before the disease made a comeback.
He died Sunday afternoon.
“It’s painful,” Invest UP CEO Marty Fittante, Casperson’s former Chief of Staff, told RRN News. “He certainly meant a lot to many. But he certainly was suffering, and so we are so grateful that he is at peace. I know at the end of the day, what he was most desiring as he was in the season, was to make sure that he reflected to the Glory of God. And I can tell you that he did that up until the end.”
“Tom had some good successes along the way (fighting the cancer),” current state senator Ed McBroom (R-Norway) told RRN News. “He got the extra time that initially we didn’t know that he’d get. A year ago it looked bad. But he got some diffrerent treatments and he got that time. He got to see his grandkids keep growing. We just talked the other day. We shared some good memories. I think most of all, Tom’s ability to keep hearing his faith during all this time, and how much he depended on Christ and was assured of where he was headed.”
Casperson was an Escanaba native, and that city’s mayor, Marc Tall, says he will be missed.
“Tom was such a good man,” Tall told RRN News. “He was such a great friend to the City of Escanaba, as well as all of the counties in the U.P. He worked tirelessly to support us, and to help in any way he could. I remember his first election victory. I saw him minutes after he learned he won. He’s been such a great friend.”
Tall announced that all flags will be lowered to half staff in the City of Escanaba to honor Casperson.
“It’s an incredible loss for our community,” State Rep. Beau LaFave (R-Iron Mountain) told RRN News. “To lose such an iconic guy. When I was growing up, I knew Tom Casperson. And I hoped one day that maybe I would be able to work with him, and it was a privledge of a lifetime to do that. Tom Casperson did more than any other lawmaker, in the era of term limits, than any other, in the Upper Peninsula. His legacy of fighting the good fight and just constantly bringing wins back to the Upper Peninsula, he’ll never be forgotten for that.”
A logger for three decades, Casperson started his political career with a successful run for the Michigan House in 2002. He represented the 108th district, covering Delta, Dickinson, and Menominee Counties, for three terms.
Casperson then worked for the Michigan Republican Party before launching a campaign for the Michigan Senate in 2010. He carried the 13-county district by more than 10,000 votes that year, becoming the Upper Peninsula’s first Republican state senator in 100 years. Casperson won re-election with 68-percent of the vote in 2014.
In the middle of his Senate term, Casperson ran for a seat in the U-S Congress in 2016, but lost in a three-way Republican primary to current Congressman Jack Bergman. Casperson finished his second and final Michigan Senate term, and then worked for his succcessor, McBroom, until his illness limited his schedule.
What will McBroom remember the most?
“How relentless he could be in his struggle for the U.P.,” McBroom said. “And his beliefs that the government had it in for us. That people just want to be left alone, left to work, enjoy their property, and make an honest living up here, and that the government was constantly getting in the way of doing that. We had great times in the car, in his office, and at people’s homes where we’d stop and see what the government was doing to them.”
Fitante remembered Casperson’s trip to Boston in November, 2019, when the cancer had made its first comeback.
“Never a complaint,” Fitante said. “I am grateful that the family asked me to fly out to Boston with him. I had never seen somebody in that acute of pain, and it was never with a complaint. I remember when he was first diagnosed (in 2018) and he got the news that it was cancer, he had a 7:30 appointment, and he kept that appointment. I sat around the table and I can tell you that that constituent would never have known that he has just received the news that he received moments earlier. At the end of the day, that’s what made him so special. And that was a reflection of his faith”.
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