Former U.S. Rep. Chenoweth-Hage dies in Nevada car crash

By BRENDAN RILEY
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Las Vegas Sun

Oct. 2, 2006

CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) - Former U.S. Rep. Helen Chenoweth-Hage died Monday in a car crash, her daughter said.

Chenoweth-Hage, a Republican who was elected to Congress from Idaho in 1994 and served through 2000, was 68. Her daughter, Meg Chenoweth Keenan, said Chenoweth-Hage was a passenger in the Monday morning crash near Tonopah, Nev. No one else was seriously injured in the one-car crash, she said.

Chenoweth had been married since 1999 to Wayne Hage, a Nevada rancher who came to epitomize Nevada's Sagebrush Rebellion as he battled for decades with the federal government over public lands and private property rights. He died in June at age 69.

Born in Topeka, Kan., Chenoweth-Hage grew up in Grants Pass, Ore. and attended Whitworth College in Spokane, Wash., before moving to the northern Idaho timber town of Orofino, where she worked at Northside Medical Center.

She became a well-known political name in the state when she moved to Boise in the 1970s, serving as the executive director of the Idaho Republican Party and becoming U.S. Rep. Steven Symms' chief of staff.

She ran for Congress against incumbent Democrat Larry LaRocco and gained national attention when she held "endangered salmon bakes," serving canned salmon and ridiculing the listing of Idaho salmon as an endangered species during fundraisers.

An advocate of smaller government and property rights, Chenoweth-Hage won the race and served a self-imposed three-term limit as a U.S. representative.