Former Arizona Congressman Sam Steiger has died in Prescott at the age of 83. From Phoenix, KJZZ’s Steve Goldstein reports…

STEVE GOLDSTEIN: Steiger, a Republican, served five terms in the U.S. House before running for the Senate in 1976. Following a nasty primary battle, Steiger went on to lose the general election to Dennis DeConcini. Steiger was outspoken and unconventional, and became Mayor of Prescott after his decade of service in Washington. Steiger suffered a debilitating stroke in 2002. Not long before that, he spoke to KJZZ about some of the dramatic changes he’d seen in rural Arizona.

SAM STEIGER: I first came to Arizona in '44 and I just never got over it. It was one of those things. The Prescott you see now is very different than the Prescott I came to. I bought a ranch north of town, about forty miles. I was courting a girl in town and she lived at home. Her folks' phone number was seven.

GOLDSTEIN: The native New Yorker also served two terms in the Arizona State Senate, and he was a special assistant to then-Governor Evan Mecham.

Steve Goldstein, KJZZ News, Phoenix.