Kevin Brandsma

Kevin Brandsma, 47, of Maple Bend, died Wednesday, May 20, 2026, in a fall while working a power line in Newaygo County, doing the job he had done for twenty-four years. He was a Consumers Energy lineman — one of the people who go out into the storm when everyone else is told to stay home, climb the pole in the dark, and stay up there until the lights come back on. He did that for this county for most of his life. He was proud of it, it was dangerous, and on Wednesday it took him.

Kevin was born May 5, 1979, in Fremont, the middle of Ray and Sandy Brandsma's three boys, into a family that had wired, framed, or repaired most of the county at one time or another. His father was a lineman before him and his grandfather a millwright, and Kevin liked to say he'd been union since before he could vote — which was nearly true; he carried his dad's spare IBEW card in his wallet as a good-luck charm from the time he was ten. He hired on with Consumers Energy at twenty-three and never worked anywhere else.

For twenty-four years he was the man at the top of the pole. He worked ice storms that kept him out four and five days at a stretch, sleeping in the truck, and came home hollow-eyed and filthy and happy because somebody's grandmother had heat again. His crew will tell you he was the first one up and the last one down, that he never let a younger guy take a risk he wouldn't take himself, and that he could splice a line in the rain, in the dark, faster than most men could find their gloves. He kept the county's lights on. It is not a small thing to be able to say that about a life.

The other half of him wore a whistle. For eighteen years Kevin coached youth wrestling in Maple Bend, starting when his own boys were small and never stopping, even after they'd grown. He coached the way he worked — patient, exacting, entirely without quit — and he had a particular soft spot for the scrawny kids and the ones who lost a lot, because he believed the mat gave a boy back exactly what he put into it, and he wanted every one of them to find that out. A dozen of his wrestlers went on to the high school team. Two reached the state finals. Every one of them knew he'd be in the stands, louder than anybody's father.

At home he was gentler than his size and his handshake let on — a maker of enormous Sunday breakfasts, a rebuilder of stubborn snowmobiles, the man who kept a spare of everything and could fix a thing before you'd finished telling him it was broken. He coached his boys, spoiled his wife, and had just begun sketching plans for a cabin up north. He kept his promises, paid his dues, and showed up — for his crew, his sons, and this whole county — every single time.

He is survived by his wife of twenty-two years, Dana; his sons, Cole, a senior at Maple Bend High and a wrestler like his father, and Owen, a sophomore; his parents, Ray and Sandy Brandsma of Fremont; his brothers, Doug (Teresa) Brandsma of Newaygo and Aaron Brandsma of Grand Rapids; his brothers on the line at Consumers Energy, who taught him and were taught by him and stood every storm at his side; and eighteen years of wrestlers, who will hear his voice in the third period for the rest of their lives.

He was preceded in death by his grandfather, Harold Brandsma, the millwright, who told him there was no shame in a job that left your hands dirty and every shame in one that didn't.

In lieu of flowers, the family asks that gifts be made to the Line Workers' Family Fund at Kevin's IBEW local, which stands behind the families of the men and women who do this dangerous work — a fund Kevin gave to quietly for years, never once thinking he would be the reason someone else needed it.