Longtime GOP Senator Passes Away At 93

Al Simpson, the “gentle giant” of the U.S. Senate who served Wyoming voters for 18 years until declining to seek reelection in 1998, has died. He was 93.

Alan K. Simpson died Friday morning, leaving a void where the 6’7″ Republican had stood for decades after leaving office. First elected in 1978, he inspired generations of GOP activists and politicians to get involved, coloring the Cowboy State an even deeper shade of red since the Reagan years.

“Today, our state and country mourn the passing of our dear Senator Alan Kooi Simpson,” U.S. Senator Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) said in a statement to Cowboy State Daily. “Al was larger than life and spent his entire life working on behalf of the state and people he loved. For 18 years in the U.S. Senate, 12 years in the Wyoming House of Representatives and 28 years as an elder statesman, he worked to make Wyoming a better place for our citizens and an even greater place to work and raise a family.”

“There was no stronger advocate for the needs, industries and interests of Wyoming. During his Senate tenure, he was repeatedly elected by his colleagues to serve in leadership as the Republican whip and was a close friend of both President Reagan and President Bush.”

Simpson lived out his final days at Spirit Mountain Hospice House in his hometown of Cody after suffering severe circulation problems in his feet and legs.

Born September 2nd, 1931, Simpson was a Silent Generation youth and son to former Gov. and U.S. Sen. Milward Simpson. He acted out in his upbringing only to be set straight upon enlisting in the U.S. Army after graduating from the University of Wyoming, he admitted in past interviews.

“It was the first time in my life that I couldn’t bullshit my way out of anything,” Simpson said in an interview last summer. “They have a way of doing that in the Army.”

He returned to Cody after serving, completing law school, and passing the bar in 1958. He took advantage of his adjacent connection to politics by becoming his father’s campaign manager for his successful 1962 Senate campaign.

Simpson’s first rung on the ladder to the Senate came while serving as a state lawmaker from 1965 to 1977, a time he spent sharpening his ability to work across the aisle when Republicans were in the minority.

“I watched him over 40-some years of friendship,” said Rob Wallace, one of Simpson’s close friends and the former assistant secretary of the Interior for Fish, Wildlife and Parks. “He had that unusual ability to walk into a room with strangers and walk out an hour later with everybody thinking they just made a new best friend.”

At the height of his career, Sen. Simpson served as Senate Majority Whip from 1985 to 1987 and Minority Whip from 1987 to 1995.

Through it all, he credited Ann, his wife of 70 years whom he leaves behind, and their three children.

“She’s my world, it’s that simple,” Simpson said.

Simpson told the Daily that he hoped the epitaph on his headstone would read, “You would’ve wanted him on your side.”