Chenoweth-Hage, Helen P. (Helen Palmer), 1938-2006

Helen Palmer Chenoweth-Hage (January 27, 1938 – October 2, 2006) was an American businesswoman, consultant, lobbyist, lecturer, and politician. A member of the Republican Party, she served three terms in the U.S. House from Idaho from 1995 to 2001.

Born in Kansas, her family moved west to Los Angeles when Helen was a year old, then north to southern Oregon when she was 12, to run a dairy farm near Grants Pass. A musician, horse enthusiast, and athlete, she attended Whitworth College in Spokane, Washington on music scholarship (double bass), where she met her first husband, Nick Chenoweth, while working in a cafeteria. The two married in 1958 and settled in his hometown, Orofino, Idaho, where they ran a ski shop near the modest Bald Mountain ski area. Later, Helen developed and managed the Northside Medical Clinic, where she initiated a physician recruitment practice for under-served rural communities. After divorcing, Helen Chenoweth moved to Boise to become executive director of the Idaho Republican Party from 1975 until 1977. She went on to serve as then-Congressman Steve Symms' District Director in 1977 through his re-election in 1978, then started her own business, Consulting Associates, and became a noteworthy lobbyist.

In 1994 Chenoweth challenged two-term incumbent Democrat Larry LaRocco, campaigning with the promise that the state economy came above and before state wildlife and recreation and that she would only serve three terms if elected. Winning by a ten-point margin, she was considered one of the most conservative members of the House. She staunchly opposed government regulation, and was a strong supporter of school prayer. One measure placed her as the most conservative woman to serve in Congress between 1937 and 2004. She was a critic of President Clinton during the Clinton–Lewinsky scandal and was one of the first to call for his resignation over the affair, although she admitted that she had carried on a six-year illicit romance with a married rancher when she worked for his natural-resources consulting firm during the 1980s.

During her final term, Chenoweth married rancher and author Wayne Hage in Boise in 1999 and changed her name to Helen Chenoweth-Hage. After leaving Congress, she moved to Hage's Nevada ranch, writing and speaking on private property rights issues. Helen Chenoweth-Hage died from injuries sustained in a car crash near Tonopah, Nevada, on October 2, 2006.