Constituents and colleagues to remember Rep. Jim Hagedorn at services Saturday

Minnesotans from small town Truman to Washington, D.C., this week celebrated the life and legacy of Republican U.S. Rep. Jim Hagedorn, who died on Feb. 17 after a long battle with kidney cancer and will be laid to rest Saturday in Blue Earth, Minn.

Constituents, friends and family will gather in Truman for a public visitation followed by a private funeral at St. Paul's Lutheran Church, where Hagedorn attended the parish school as a child.

"Proud Minnesotans, regardless of our political perspective, can stand together in memory of one of our great colleagues," Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Emmer said during a moment of silence for Hagedorn on the floor of the U.S. House this week. "I never saw Jim more proud than when he was here in this chamber representing the state of Minnesota and the communities that he loved so much."

Hagedorn, who was 59, will be buried at Riverside Cemetery in Blue Earth following Saturday's services.

For more than three years he represented the sprawling southern First District in Congress, following in the footsteps of his father, Tom Hagedorn, who served much of the same area for four terms in the 1970s and early 1980s.

After two unsuccessful attempts running for the seat, Hagedorn won in 2018, one of only two seats in the U.S. House that Republicans flipped from blue to red. He was re-elected in 2020 and had announced only days before he died that he planned to run again this year under the newly drawn lines of the district.

"Jim fought so hard to win that seat," said Jennifer Carnahan, Hagedorn's wife. "People underestimated him and they underestimated the impact he was having. He was proof that if you work hard to achieve your dream, you will get there."

"To have to start battling cancer right away and do that the entire time he served the district, it's enormous," she said. "It just showed how much he really believed in southern Minnesota and the country."

Hagedorn was born in 1962 and grew up on his family farm near Truman before moving east to study political science. He served as a legislative aide to U.S. Rep. Arlan Stangeland and worked with the Financial Management Service of the U.S. Treasury Department and as a congressional affairs officer for the Bureau of Engraving and Printing.

In Congress, Hagedorn served on committees dealing with agriculture and small business, working on trade policy and pushing for aid for businesses that were struggling during the COVID-19 pandemic.

"He was probably the hardest-working person in Congress. He traveled from east to west, north to south, and knew a lot of people and shook a lot of hands," said Lon Firchau, a childhood friend who went on to serve as a political director for Hagedorn. "He would take that knowledge back to D.C. to his work."

He ran as a "conservative reinforcement" in Congress and was among the House Republicans who voted against certifying President Joe Biden's victory in two swing states. Hagedorn's last act in Congress was proposing to display a national debt clock on the floor of the U.S. House.