Senator’s dad dies:
Dean Flake, the father of Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake and a former mayor of Snowflake, dies at age 85. “My hero, my idol, my father,” the senator said in a statement announcing the death.
Sen. Jeff Flake announced Monday evening on Twitter that his father, Dean Flake, has died.
In a 7:27 p.m. message, Flake, R-Ariz., wrote: “The finest man I’ve ever known passed away today, Dean Flake. My hero, my idol, my father.”
He later posted the same message on Facebook.
Dean Flake, 85, died as the Senate was preparing to proceed on the controversial Republican health-care bill, which would undo much of President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act, which critics call “Obamacare.”
A key procedural vote related to the GOP bill, the Better Care Reconciliation Act of 2017 — which critics call “Trumpcare” after President Donald Trump — had been expected as early as Wednesday.
Flake’s office said early Tuesday that, while funeral arrangements had not been made, Flake would be in Washington, D.C., Wednesday for votes. By later in the day, the point was moot because Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., announced that he was delaying the bill.
Flake has yet to signal his position on the proposal, only saying last week that he would read the bill and deliberate on it. Flake is up for re-election next year and has faced intense pressure from critics urging him to oppose the measure.
Dean Flake, a former mayor of Snowflake, the town where Jeff Flake grew up, married his wife, Nerita, on Jan. 18, 1956, in the Mesa Arizona Temple, according to a 2016 profile of the senator’s mother in the
The couple had 11 children during their 61-year marriage.
Dean Flake served in the U.S. Army during the Korean War, according to a bio released Tuesday by Flake’s office.
Jeff Flake, who now lives in Mesa, was raised on a ranch owned by the the F-Bar Cattle Co., a partnership consisting of Dean Flake and three of his brothers.
“If one of the greatest gifts a child can receive is to be raised by an honorable father, my 10 siblings and I were blessed in spades,” Jeff Flake wrote in a 1998 guest column in The Arizona Republic. “Not only is our father the most admirable man we know, we were raised on a ranch with a bunch of cousins who felt the same way about their fathers as we did about ours.”
Dean Flake’s brother, Jake Flake, was a state legislator who served as speaker White Mountain Independent. of the Arizona House of Representatives. Jake Flake died in 2008.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., on Tuesday offered his condolences to the Flake family.
“A beloved husband, father, grandfather and great grandfather, Dean Flake devoted his life to family, raising his 11 children on a ranch, surrounded by their cousins, and teaching them the importance working hard and being humble,” McCain said in a written statement. “Dean was also deeply engaged in his community, and served as the mayor of Snowflake, on the Board of Arizona State Parks, and as a bishop at his church. Arizona will miss Dean Flake, but his legacy as an honorable family man and his contributions to our state will always live on.”
Nowicki is The Arizona Republic’s national political reporter. Follow him on Twitter, @dannowicki.