Former Gov. Mike Foster passes away at age 90

It was Monday, Jan. 8, 1996, and the headline in the Banner-Tribune, as well as virtually all media in Louisiana and beyond, was “Foster new Louisiana governor.”
Nowhere more jubilantly than here in St. Mary Parish: Our own native son had risen to the highest office in the state.
Murphy J. “Mike” Foster was a well-known businessman and unlikely politician. But he charged into a seat in the state Senate and announced his candidacy for governor.
He died Sunday at his home, Oaklawn Manor.
Foster was an Eagle Scout, a member of Troop 1 in the 1940s. Fellow Eagle Scout Dr. Thomas Kramer described him as “an excellent Boy Scout who lived up to the oath and the laws of scouting in every way. He was an asset to the scouting movement.”
Foster was born on July 11, 1930, in Shreveport, Louisiana. Shortly thereafter, his family moved to Centerville where he attended public school as a child.
“A crowd of about 5,000 braved today’s cold temperatures to see the new governor sworn into office,” the Banner reported.
When not in Baton Rouge, Foster was usually at his home, Oaklawn Manor, or often as not, in the duck blind, as he was an avid hunter.
Foster attended public high school in Franklin, graduated from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge in 1952 with a bachelor of science in chemistry, and Southern University Law Center with a juris doctorate in 2004, the year he left the governorship. He became an Eagle Scout in the Boy Scouts of America in 1946 and is a recipient of the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award. He was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity (Zeta Zeta chapter) and The Friars. He joined the Air Force and served in the Korean War. His paternal grandfather, Murphy J. Foster Sr., was governor of Louisiana from 1892 to 1900 and thereafterserved as U.S. senator from 1900 to 1913. By the time Mike Foster entered politics, he had already become a wealthy sugar planter and owner of a construction firm.
He was a sugar cane farmer,founder of Bayou Sale construction firm, president of Sterling Sugars, Inc.and president of St. Mary Parish Farm Bureau.
A life in politics never appealed to Mike Foster; however, in 1986, after “becoming frustrated with the non-responsiveness of state government, he ran for a seat in the State Senate. After fulfilling two very active terms in the Senate, then Senator Foster decided that he could get more accomplished as governor.
On January 8, 1996, after mounting a successful campaign as a Republican candidate, M.J. "Mike" Foster Jr., was inaugurated as Louisiana’s 49th governor since the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. After a very successful first term, Governor Foster ran for a second term and won in a landslide in the first primary. This was the first time in many years that anyone has won the governorship outright without a runoff election. He was inaugurated in January 2000 and that term expired in 2004.
When he was not running the state, Governor Foster enjoyed spending his free time at his home, Oaklawn Manor, in Franklin. While family, fishing and hunting occupied the bulk of his free time; his thirst for knowledge and education led him to take motorcycle and helicopter-flying lessons.
Foster entered politics at the age of 57. He was the state’s first two-term Republican governor. In 1987, then-Democrat Foster unseated liberal Democratic state Senator Anthony Guarisco Jr. of Morgan City,by a large margin. Foster is said to have run for the state Senate because Guarisco would not return his telephone calls. Guarisco was a vocal supporter of the defunct Equal Rights Amendment. Foster served two terms in the state Senate and then ran for governor. Foster worked to re-organize the state's community college system by creating the Louisiana Community and Technical College System, and expanded the Tuition Opportunity Program for Students (TOPS), a brainchild of the New Orleans oilman Patrick F. Taylor, so that students were eligible based on merit, rather than income. In the 2002 legislative session, Foster credited freshman Representative Tom Capella of Jefferson Parish with saving TOPS from the budget axe.Foster instituted mandatory standardized testing for grade advancement in a move described by his administration as an effort to make public schools more accountable. He made increasing teacher salaries a major priority, at one point promising to stop cashing his paychecks until teachers' salaries reached the Southern average.
On inauguration day, the members of Boy Scout Troop I of Franklin participated in the ceremonies. Franklin resident David Rose, Scoutmaster, said, “This is a history lesson. “They are excited about the trip.”
Foster was instrumental in the completion of the four-lane stretch of U.S. 90 between Lafayette and New Orleans.
He was also instrumental in the building of the new Franklin Foundation Hospital.
In his inaugural address, Foster denounced“hogs at the trough” who exploited political connections to secure state contracts and jobs, and he pledged to conduct state business in a forthright manner without favoring political insiders. Foster stacked his administration with such results-oriented managers as Commissioner of Administration Mark Drennen, Chief of Staff Stephen Perry, and Health and Hospitals Secretary Bobby Jindal(who would later become a congressman and then governor), and under Foster’s leadership the team effectively restored a sense of integrity to the operations of state government while putting the state’s finances on more stable footing. Meanwhile, Foster made improvements in public education a priority of his administration. In six of his eight years in office, teachers received salary increases, which raised their total annual pay by about $10,000. The Taylor Opportunity Program for Students (TOPS) was established, using state funds to provide scholarships to Louisiana residents who attended public universities in the state. The system for channeling state money to local school boards for classroom needs was fully financed, and his administration increased salaries, construction, and maintenance at state universities.
As governor, he balanced his conservative, “he’s-not-a-politician” persona with moderate policies during his first term. Foster won support from the left because he raised salaries for K-12 teachers and university professors — and refurbished crumbling buildings at LSU and other universities — and from the right by winning legislative approval to make it harder for injured people to sue businesses.
Upon finishing his second term, Foster reflected, “The most important thing is we changed the whole culture of doing things, not based on politics. We don’t have to worry about how somebody’s brother-in-law was getting a good deal.”
But in the weeks ahead, columns that he was writing for weekly newspapers throughout the state for Louisiana State Newspapers — in which he offered common-sense solutions for knotty political issues — began to connect with voters hungry for change. Following the advice of his political consultant Roy Fletcher, Foster staked out the most conservative positions of any candidate on social issues, pitching himself as a gun toting and anti-abortion Christian.
In an interview with “64 Parishes” he said, “They had a real hissy when I went to law school. All I did was go one or two hours a week. I figured I could afford that kind of time. It was helpful. I’ve always enjoyed the law. In fact,when I got out of being governor I continued going to school and got my law degree. I never will forget when I was first elected, I went to both chancellors. I said, ‘Can I take a couple of courses?’ ‘No, we can’t do that.’” The second time I went to LSU to the chancellor, they said no. And the Chairman of Southern said, ‘We’re supposed to have a part-time program and…[if] you [are] going to take the LSAT and pass it, we’ll start a part-time program.’ And we did! And they still have a part time program, which is one of the things I’ve gotten a lot of thanks for from students that have been there.
“Then they had a little hissy when I went and learned to fly the helicopter. But I’ve been a pilot all my life. I was flying around with one pilot. One had had open heart surgery. The other had kidney stones. I thought, if he keels over, I’m dead. So I went out and about an hour or two a week learned to fly the helicopter and my answer was look, look at it this way, if one my pilots keels over I’ll save the state two million dollars for a new helicopter, I’ll save another election. Those are the kind of issues that were sort of odd ball, but I got used to them.”
And that, was Mike Foster.