Helen Margaret Palmer Chenoweth-Hage (January 27, 1938 – October 2, 2006) was a [Republican](https://doctorparadox.net/the-gop-is-3-cults-in-a-trenchcoat/) politician from the U.S. state of Idaho. She remains the only Republican woman to ever represent Idaho in the United States Congress​[1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Chenoweth-Hage)​. Chenoweth was born in Kansas and moved with her family to Los Angeles when she was a year old, then to southern Oregon when she was 12. Her family ran a dairy farm near Grants Pass. She was a musician, horse enthusiast, and athlete, and attended Whitworth College in Spokane, Washington on a music scholarship. She married Nick Chenoweth in 1958, and they had two children. After her divorce in 1975, she moved to Boise to become executive director of the Idaho Republican Party and later served as Congressman Steve Symms' District Director. She then started her own business, Consulting Associates, and became a noteworthy lobbyist in Idaho's capital city​[1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Chenoweth-Hage)​. ## Poster-child for the militias In 1994, Chenoweth won the Republican nomination for Idaho's 1st Congressional District and defeated two-term Democratic incumbent Larry LaRocco. She became the second woman (after Gracie Pfost) to represent Idaho in Congress and one of few members to be elected by her peers to chair a subcommittee ([[House of Representatives]] Subcommittee on Forest and Forest Health) after only one term. She was a staunch opponent of government regulation and a strong supporter of school prayer. She was considered one of the most conservative members of the House and was referred to as a "poster-child for the [[militia]]s" by her critics. She gained national attention during her campaign by holding "endangered salmon bakes" and accusing federal agents of using black helicopters to enforce the Endangered Species Act, a claim she later conceded was not based on personal observation​[1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Chenoweth-Hage)​​[2](https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna15111030)​. Chenoweth married her second husband, Wayne Hage, in 1999. He was a Nevada rancher who battled with the federal government over public lands and private property rights for decades​[2](https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna15111030)​. Chenoweth-Hage died in a car crash in 2006, near Tonopah, Nevada, at the age of 68.