UPDATED: Former Gov. Mike Foster dies at age 90

Gov. Mike Foster died Sunday at his home in Franklin, Louisiana political columnist Jeremy Alford reports.

Foster, who served as governor 1996-2004, was 90.

Alford quotes former first lady Alice Foster, the former governor's wife of more than half a century, as saying, "Our family and I are saddened to announce that after 90 remarkable years, my dear husband has passed. Our family will miss him dearly."

Foster was surrounded by friends and family when he died, the family said. They offered thanks to doctors, nurses, hospice and home health care professionals for the care they provided.

Foster was reported to have entered hospice care Tuesday.

Foster, who served two terms in the state Senate as a Democrat before running for governor as a Republican, will likely be remembered for ushering in decades of GOP dominance in Louisiana state politics. He also presided over eight years of relative peace and prosperity after the disastrous plunge in oil prices and the turbulent reigns of Edward Edwards in the 1980s and early 1990s.

Foster had a touch of the eccentric about him, too. He was known for riding a big motorcycle and his distaste for helmets, except for the welder's visor he sported in a famous TV ad during his gubernatorial campaign. He also entered law school at Southern University after he became governor, earning his juris doctorate in 2004.

State Sen. Bret Allain, like Foster a Franklin Republican, now holds the Senate seat that once belonged to Foster. Allain said he went into politics at Foster's urging and is proud of that because the former governor believed in public service, not politics.

"He was a hell of a public servant," Allain said. "He wasn't a politician."

The grandson of a governor, Murphy J. "Mike" Foster was born July 11, 1930, in Shreveport. He graduated from Franklin High School and earned a degree in chemistry from LSU.

Foster served in the Air Force and left the service with the rank of captain after serving in the Korean War. He followed his father into the sugar cane business and started a construction company, and was successful in both enterprises.

He entered politics in 1987, challenging incumbent state Sen. Anthony Guarisco, a Morgan City Democrat, and winning handily. Foster won reelection in 1991 with 85% of the vote.

Foster switched parties to Republican in 1995, shortly before becoming one of the lesser known candidates in a field that included former Gov. Buddy Roemer, Lt. Gov. Mary Landrieu and former Lt. Gov. Melinda Schwegmann.

But Foster came out strongly against the further expansion of legal gambling in Louisiana, where the New Orleans casino, riverboats, widespread video poker and the Louisiana Lottery had come into being in just five years. Campaign ads stressed that Foster was a regular working man who also supported social conservative values.

Foster easily led all candidates with 26% of the primary vote. His runoff opponent was state Sen. Cleo Fields, D-Baton Rouge, whom Foster vanquished in the runoff.

Foster won reelection in 1999 by winning the primary outright with 62% of the vote in an 11-candidate field.

Foster remained a conservative through his eight years in office. He pushed legislation allowing local option elections in which people could vote out video poker in their parishes. Four days after taking office in January 1996, Foster simultaneously declared a Martin Luther King Jr. holiday and signed an executive order eliminating affirmative action programs, although he was quoted by the New York Times as saying the action would do little without the Legislature's support. Foster endorsed social conservative Pat Buchanan in the 1996 presidential race.

But Foster's conservatism had a practical side. He ran afoul of some anti-gambling forces in Baton Rouge by supporting legislation that effectively bailed out Harrah's Casino in New Orleans, a potentially large source of revenue for state government. "Though elected on an anti-gambling platform," wrote the Conservapedia website, "once in office Foster became a quiet ally of the gambling industry."

Foster also supported the controversial Stelly Plan, which made groceries and utility payments exempt from state sales taxes in exchange for an increase in state income taxes on the wealthiest residents. Approval by voters of the Stelly Plan ended the annual legislative ritual of suspending the exemptions in order to balance the budget. But the outcry over the income tax increases led to their repeal.

Foster is credited with being a business-friendly governor, despite being famously reluctant to travel in order to persuade businesses to relocate in Louisiana. He was a proponent of tort reform who successfully limited the legal exposure of business by eliminating punitive damages.

Foster oversaw Louisiana's participation in the state-federal Atchafalaya Basin Project, which led to the creation of a state commission and the 44,000-acre Sherbourne Complex, which is managed by the state. Foster's death occurred in what has been declared by Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser as Atchafalaya Month.

The push to raise U.S. 90 from Lafayette to New Orleans to interstate standards gained momentum during Foster's terms. Although the completion of the project has been stalled by fighting over the route the new I-49 South will take through Lafayette, the state embarked on a series of multimillion-dollar overpasses that eliminated dangerous crossovers and control access as required for interstates. The latest was at La. 318 in St. Mary Parish.

Foster told Allain that he wished he'd pushed harder for I-49 South.

"He was humble like that," Allain said.

But Allain said Foster accomplished many things, including a refurbished Franklin Foundation Hospital and other infrastructure projects in St. Mary. He credited Foster with working as a senator on changes that improved Louisiana's worker compensation system at a time when instability there threatened to drive businesses out of the state. Foster consolidated state buildings around the Capitol, simplifying a maze of leases on buildings that housed state offices.

And Foster also reorganized two-year higher education in Louisiana, creating the Louisiana Community and Technical College System. He brought in future Gov. Bobby Jindal, then a 24-year-old wunderkind, to help run both higher education and the state health care system. During Jindal's 2008-16 gubernatorial administration, Foster appeared with other former governors to urge Jindal to halt funding cuts in the state's higher education.

Foster is also credited with expanding the Tuition Opportunity Program for Students, or TOPS, by basing participation on merit rather than family income.

"We've lost a great man," Allain said. "When you look at everything he did for the parish and the state, he was a great man."

This story has been edited to report that Gov. Foster was born in Shreveport.