Al Quie, who served as Minnesota governor after a long career in congress has died at the age of 99.
Family members told the StarTribune that Quie died Friday after living his final years at an assisted living community in Wayzata.
The life-long Republican who was a third-generation dairy farmer never lost an election, serving twenty years as District 1 US Representative from southern Minnesota.
He was governor for one term after upsetting incumbent Democrat Rudy Perpich in 1978.
At the time of his death, Quie was Minnesota's oldest living governor, and was also the oldest living former member of Congress.
Quie won his first election in 1958, edging Democrat Eugene Foley by less than a percentage point to win a special election to fill the seat vacated when August Anderson died.
After that, Quie was re-elected 10 times, accumulating as much as 70 percent of the vote when he defeated DFLer Charles Thompson in 1972.
His win over Perpich for Minnesota governor was as decisive as it was surprising, with the Republican capturing the state's highest office by 53-45 percent margin over the incumbent.
Quie did not run for re-election in 1982, with Perpich winning re-election.
Born on Sept. 18, 1923 on his family farm in the Rice County town of Dennison, Quie served as a fighter pilot in World War II before graduating from St. Olaf College in 1950.
He was in the Minnesota Senate from 1955 to 1958.
Quie's wife of nearly 70 years, Gretchen, died in 2015 at the age of 88.
They had five children, 14 grandchildren, and 21 great-grandchildren.