Guy Adrian Vander Jagt as a Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Michigan. He was born in Cadillac, Michigan on August 26, 1931. He began preaching at the Tustin Presbyterian Church while a high school student. He graduated from Hope College in Holland, in 1953, and won several state and national public speaking competitions. He next attended Yale Divinity School, graduating in 1957. He also studied for a year at the University of Bonn, Germany on a Rotary Foundation Fellowship. Vander Jagt next went back to school to study law at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. but soon transferred to the law school at the University of Michigan, where he received his J.D. in 1960. He began practicing law in Grand Rapids.
In 1964 he was elected to the Michigan State Senate. However, he almost immediately began considering a run for the United States Senate against 9th District Congressman Robert Griffin in 1966. Unable to raise the money for a Senate run, in 1966, he ran instead to fill his opponent's House seat and won. He was sworn in as soon as the results were certified, as Griffin had been appointed to the Senate. He was reelected 12 times, never facing truly serious opposition in a district widely considered to be the most Republican district in Michigan.
