Clifford Orville Branstad (April 23, 1924 – November 10, 2014) was an American politician who served in the

Iowa House of Representatives The Iowa House of Representatives is the lower house of the Iowa General Assembly, the upper house being the Iowa Senate. There are 100 seats in the Iowa House of Representatives, representing 100 single-member districts across the state, forme ...

between 1979 and 1997. Born in

Thompson, Iowa Thompson is a city in Winnebago County, Iowa, United States. The population was 495 at the time of the 2020 census. Thompson is home to the Winnebago County Fair, held annually, various agricultural businesses, a public outdoor swimming pool, th ...

, and one of five children to Lydia Siekmeier and Philip A. G. Branstad, Clifford Branstad attended the local high school, but left in January 1943 to enlist in the Army Air Corps, where he served 43 months, flying 41 missions for the

Army Air Force The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...

. Upon his return to the United States and still without a high school diploma, Branstad enrolled at the

Dunwoody Institute Dunwoody College of Technology is a private technology school in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It offers Bachelor of Science (B.S.), Bachelor of Architecture (B. Arch) and Associate of Applied Science (A.A.S.) degrees. History Dunwoody College wa ...

in Minnesota. He then earned a bachelor's degree in sociology and economics from the

University of Iowa The University of Iowa (UI, U of I, UIowa, or simply Iowa) is a public research university in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1847, it is the oldest and largest university in the state. The University of Iowa is organized into 12 coll ...

in 1948 after having studied at Central State Teachers College in Wisconsin. Branstad later became a pre-law student at

Georgetown University Georgetown University is a private university, private research university in the Georgetown (Washington, D.C.), Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded by Bishop John Carroll (archbishop of Baltimore), John Carroll in 1789 as Georg ...

and then moved to Chicago to work in the insurance industry. Branstad began farming near Thompson in 1951, and began his political career by contesting the state legislative elections of 1978, succeeding his second cousin

Terry Branstad Terry Edward Branstad (born November 17, 1946) is an American politician and former diplomat. A member of the Republican Party, he served three terms in the Iowa House of Representatives from 1973 to 1979 before serving as governor of Iowa fr ...

as state representative from the eighth district in January 1979. He won a second term in 1980, and from 1983 to his retirement in 1997 represented the sixteenth district. In December 2006, Branstad was awarded a high school diploma from North Iowa High School, which had formed from a merger between Thompson and Buffalo Center-Rake-Lakota High Schools in 1996. Branstad was a Lutheran. He died in 2014, aged 90, survived by his wife, Grace Martin, whom he had married in 1947, and four of his five children.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Branstad, Clifford 1924 births 2014 deaths People from Winnebago County, Iowa Republican Party members of the Iowa House of Representatives University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point alumni University of Iowa alumni Georgetown University alumni United States Army Air Forces pilots of World War II Military personnel from Iowa