On Saturday night, September 12th, Tom Tiffany and his pilot, Len Boltz, were flying home from the La Crosse County Lincoln Day Dinner when the engine on their single-engine Beechcraft Bonanza lost power. Boltz had only seconds to act. He put the plane down in an emergency landing in Lake Wausau.
Tiffany’s head struck the dashboard, leaving a cut over his right eye that later took 12 stitches. In the dark, the two men climbed out and called 911, then waited on top of the plane for about 10 minutes. When the plane began to sink, they had to swim for it, roughly 100 to 150 feet, until they could stand on a sandbar. Wausau firefighters picked them up by boat.
The next day, Tiffany stood in front of reporters in Wausau to thank the pilot and the first responders who came through for them. He also made it clear the crash would not take him off the campaign trail. “I signed up for this job,” he said. “We’re going to finish the job.”
He meant it. Five days after the crash, he was back out taking questions at Tavern Talks in Dodge County and Fond du Lac. By Friday morning he was in Eau Claire, back on the schedule he has kept all year.
Hard times show a person who they are. How someone handles a trial is one of the best indicators of how they will handle the tough times ahead. A man swimming out of a sinking plane in the dark and getting right back in the race has shown us his character.
That character matters because of what is on people’s minds right now. With prices rising, affordability is the issue most families are talking about, and Tiffany wants to deliver where they are hit hardest, especially on property taxes. Those taxes are pricing seniors out of their own homes and keeping young people from owning one at all. At the taverns, that is the conversation: ways to give Wisconsinites relief from the rising cost of living.
