The state is mourning the death of former two-term Governor Mike Foster, who passed away in Franklin at the age of 90. The Korean War vet and businessman from St. Mary Parish created Louisiana’s Community and Technical College System. His former chief of staff, Stephen Perry, says Foster knew the importance of a two-year college degree.
“Because we know that in Louisiana 70% of the young people don’t get four-year college degrees, but they need training for life and they need training for skill to make them employable,” said Perry.
Perry says Foster also helped expand TOPS and directed 1.7 billion dollars to higher education.
“New university buildings and hundreds of millions of dollars of deferred maintenance,” said Perry. “To Mike building a new economy at that time was based on educating new people.”
Foster was a Democrat when he was elected to the Louisiana Senate in 1987. But when he qualified to run in the 1995 governor’s race he switched to Republicans. Perry says it was the start of a movement in Louisiana.
“That was the first we began to see the longtime southern rural Democrat, who was a social conservative in beginning to change and becoming Republican,” said Perry.
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