Joshua Vissers/Daily Mining Gazette Fran Whitman looks to her experience to help her local community as a Baraga County Commissioner.

With the sitting commissioner, Bill Menge, declining to run for reelection, four Baraga County residents are competing for the fourth seat on the board. Fran Whitman is the only candidate registered to run with the Democratic Party, and will compete in November with the Republican candidate who wins August’s primary vote.

Whitman was born in L’Anse and raised in Zeba. She said she feels lucky to have had role models dedicated to community service when she was young. Her great-uncle Ben was involved in many organizational roles, and helped found the hospital.

“He and other relatives came up from lower Michigan and built the theater, a soda fountain, a shoe store and also the Whirl-i-Gig dance hall in the twenties,” Whitman said.

Her father was also part of the village council.

After high school, Whitman went to Detroit for Henry Ford Hospital for nursing school. Later, she returned to Northern Michigan University to get her bachelors in nursing and masters degree in nursing administration. During her nursing career, she did everything from home health care to being health manager for the Baraga Maximum Correctional Facility.

“I’ve been a nurse for 53 years,” Whitman said.

She returned to the area in the late ’70s and was invited to join the Bay Ambulance board. She campaigned for the millage to get Gary Wadaga hired on as their first paramedic. Wadaga is still at Bay Ambulance as director. She also was among the group that founded the Baraga County Shelter Home.

“On these endeavors I wasn’t the only person,” Whitman said. “We had a big cross-section of Baraga County come together on the shelter home.”

Whitman has served on many boards and with many organizations.

“I’ve done everything I could to help Baraga County throughout my life,” she said.

She’s worked on the Upper Peninsula Emergency Medical Services board, the Barbara Kettle-Gundlach Shelter Home board, the Bayside Village board and the Baraga County Memorial Hospital board for 32 years.

“I just retired,” Whitman said.

She is also an active member of the Friends of the Land of Keweenaw, Friends of the Huron Mountains, the Huron Island Lighthouse Preservation Association, and the Upper Peninsula Environmental Coalition.

Whitman says her time with these different boards and organizations has allowed her to build many contacts that she hopes can be helpful to the county. She said she wants to seek out economic opportunity for Baraga that preserves both the environment and the local culture. She also said she thinks women should be better represented on the board, as they are about half the population. She would like to expand the inclusiveness of the board. 

Whitman also appreciates the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community’s contribution to the county.

“They’re a vital part of the community, we’re lucky to have them in Baraga County and to have the diversity and the link to the past,” she said.

Whitman said that she’ll spend a little time learning about how the county board works, but having attended meetings before hopes she’ll pick it up fast. In office, she said she would advocate for environmental preservation, support for the local hospital and public health department, and hiring a grant writer for the county.

Whitman said she wants to improve the economy without spoiling what’s already there.

“We are lucky to live here,” Whitman said. “Some people take it for granted, but if you’ve ever lived away for a long time and you come back, you realize you didn’t realize what a unique and beautiful place it was when you were here.”