‘An enduring mark on our state’: Dirk Kempthorne, former Idaho governor, dies at 74
Dirk Kempthorne, the charismatic former Idaho governor who went on to lead the U.S. Department of the Interior, died Friday night of complications from late-stage cancer. He was 74.
Kempthorne, who also served as a U.S. senator from Idaho and as mayor of Boise, announced his diagnosis in March 2025. He called it maybe the “challenge of my lifetime,” but pledged to fight it “head-on” and quickly began treatment.
Kempthorne died surrounded by those who loved him most, according to a Saturday morning news release announcing his death.
“Beyond his public services, he was a devoted husband, father, and grandfather whose greatest joy came from time spent with family and the people he met along the way,” his family said in the release. “Our family is heartbroken, but we are also deeply grateful — for the time we had with him and for the extraordinary outpouring of love and support we have received across Idaho and the country.”
Gov. Brad Little ordered U.S. and Idaho flags lowered to half-staff at all state buildings and facilities to honor Kempthorne, the state’s 30th governor. They will remain lowered until the day after Kempthorne’s memorial service, which will be announced at a later date.
“As governor, Dirk left an enduring mark on our state,” Little said in a statement. “I will always remember Dirk’s generosity and warmth. He was thoughtful, gracious, and deeply committed to the people around him.”
Kempthorne, a Republican, won two terms as governor — first in 1998 and again in 2002. He received nearly 68% of the vote in his first election to become Idaho’s chief executive, and remained popular enough to win by about 15 percentage points in his reelection bid four years later, according to Idaho Secretary of State’s Office data.
As governor, Kempthorne prioritized early childhood health and education in Idaho by launching several initiatives he branded the “Generation of the Child.” Many of his programs still exist today under the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare.
Before he could finish his second term, Kempthorne was tapped by President George W. Bush to join his administration as U.S. secretary of the interior — a position he held for nearly three years from 2006 to 2009 during Bush’s second term. Kempthorne remains one of just a few Idahoans to receive an appointment to a presidential cabinet.
U.S. Sen. Jim Risch, R-Idaho, served as lieutenant governor for three and half years during Kempthorne’s second term as governor. He succeeded him as governor for seven months when Kempthorne left to steer the federal executive branch agency.
“Dirk always had Idaho at the forefront of his efforts,” Risch said in a statement Saturday. “Idahoans owe a debt of gratitude to Dirk Kempthorne and his tireless work in strengthening what he calls the ‘43rd star in the galaxy of states that make up the greatest nation in the world.’ I am honored to have known Dirk, to have served alongside him, and to have called him a friend. He will be greatly missed.”
Kempthorne never lost an election during his career in public office that spanned almost a quarter-century — what amounted to a third of his life. After becoming Boise’s mayor at 34 years old and seven years in the role, he served one term in the U.S. senate while President Bill Clinton was in office.
“My dad is the best speaker I have ever heard. He can command a room of dignitaries, CEOs or elected officials, then turn around and talk to a brigade of soldiers heading off to war, offering strength with just his presence,” Heather Kempthorne Myklegard, his daughter, wrote in an essay for Arlington Magazine in October 2025. “He can make the little old lady at the checkout line blush, or coax the butcher behind the counter into proudly showing off the latest picture of his granddaughter.”
‘It all adds together’
Originally from Southern California, and the youngest of three boys, Dirk Arthur Kempthorne spent much of his childhood in Spokane, Washington. After high school, he attended San Bernardino Valley College in California before he transferred to the University of Idaho in Moscow. He initially planned to study medicine in hopes of becoming a doctor, but came to find he “wasn’t very good with chemistry and physics,” he told The Spokesman-Review in 2017.
He changed course and majored in political science, graduating in 1975. Along the way, Kempthorne launched what would mature into an esteemed political career when he was elected student body president.
“I could probably take different issues I had to deal with as secretary of the interior and I could show you the thread back to experiences at the University of Idaho, or at City Hall in Boise, or at the Statehouse in Boise,” Kempthorne told The Spokesman-Review. “It all adds together.”
The U of I later granted him an honorary doctorate of administrative science in 2017. More recently, at winter commencement in December, the school awarded him the President’s Medallion, which coincided with the 50th anniversary of Kempthorne earning his bachelor’s degree. The award is given to those who have made significant contributions to Idaho’s cultural, economic, scientific or social advancement, offered notable service to the state or nation and improved the well-being of humankind.
While out on the campaign trail for student body president as a junior in 1974, Kempthorne also met his future wife, Patricia, when the two were undergraduates in Moscow. A few years later in Boise, under the branches of a sugar maple tree that President Theodore Roosevelt planted on a visit to the Idaho Capitol grounds in 1903, Kempthorne asked for the future Idaho first lady’s hand in marriage in 1977, he said.
They wed later that year at sunrise atop Moscow Mountain near their alma mater. The couple had two children, a daughter and a son.
They “give me the titles that I’m most proud to have, and that is husband and father,” Kempthorne said at his June 2006 swearing-in ceremony as U.S. interior secretary on the White House’s South Lawn. He also became a grandfather to seven grandchildren who knew him as “Pop Dirk,” his family said.
Kempthorne was widely considered pro-business and pro-development during his time in office, and a relative moderate on the political spectrum. He is credited with helping spur downtown Boise’s redevelopment and also spearheading dozens of major construction projects throughout the state. The latter paired well with his hobby for many years as a Harley-Davidson motorcycle rider and enthusiast.
Leading the state was the most difficult position he filled in elected office, Kempthorne recalled in 2017.
“When you’re governor, there’s no one to stand with you,” he said. “You either sign the legislation or you veto it, and you say why.”
Toward the end of his first term as governor in 2002, Kempthorne followed through on a pledge to veto a bill that would end term limits for statewide offices. The Legislature, controlled by his own party, voted to override the governor, making Idaho the first state to repeal voter-approved term limits.
As interior secretary, Kempthorne made the decision in 2008 to issue protections for polar bears by listing the species as threatened. He was otherwise maligned by critics during his tenure over assertions that he weakened the Endangered Species Act.
In his six years in the Senate, where Kempthorne also served on the Senate Armed Services Committee, he was rebuked for working to limit federal involvement in enforcing environmental policy. He received a 1% lifetime score from the League of Conservation Voters.
Kempthorne unapologetically backed logging on national forest lands and also supported contentious drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Both positions comported with the Bush administration’s approach to federal land and energy issues.
“Dirk understands that those who live closest to the land know how to manage it best, and he will work closely with state and local leaders to ensure wise stewardship of our resources,” Bush said in his nomination speech for Kempthorne.
Despite his detractors, Kempthorne remained inquisitive and open to conversation, and also prone to an independent streak, Rick Johnson, former longtime executive director of the Idaho Conservation League, told the Idaho Statesman. “He was intellectually curious and not ideologically locked,” he said.
The environmental nonprofit first approached Kempthorne when he was in the Senate about protecting the land known as the Boulder-White Clouds in Central Idaho’s Sawtooth National Recreational Area, Johnson said.
Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, later won wilderness status for the area in 2015, and three years after also had a portion renamed for Cecil Andrus — Kempthorne’s gubernatorial and Interior Department predecessor. But Johnson credited Kempthorne with helping develop a long-term strategy for success.
“He was really the first person who got us thinking about building the politics in a different way,” he said. “He was skillful, he was good at reading a room, good at reading a state, good at reading an electorate.”
Simpson said he and Kempthorne were friends for more than four decades, and called him “one of Idaho’s most distinguished public servants.”
“Dirk’s career was a testament to selfless dedication, from the halls of local government as mayor and governor to national service as senator and secretary,” Simpson said in a statement Saturday. “I join Idahoans today in mourning the loss of Dirk, but also feel immense gratitude for his decades of service, loyalty, and the lasting impact he has had on Idaho and America. I am grateful for Dirk’s service to our state and nation, as well as his friendship all these years.”
Idaho’s ‘driving force’
Kempthorne pushed back against claims he didn’t work with conservationists. As governor, he established the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality, as well as the Governor’s Office of Species Conservation.
“I do get along with environmental groups,” Kempthorne told the news outlet Stateline in 2003.
Elevating DEQ from a division to its own agency was important for the state, but the species conservation office constrained work already handled by Idaho Fish and Game, Johnson said. Paired, the two actions showcased Kempthorne’s efforts to frequently seek compromise, including through collaboration, Johnson said.
“He treaded a middle ground, I think adroitly,” the former ICL executive director said. “He was not always able to deliver, but it was in his bones, and I think that was pretty cool.”
In 2026, the Legislature approved merging the Office of Species Conservation with the Office of Energy and Mineral Resources. The State Historic Preservation Office also was placed under the same roof with a new law this session.
Kempthorne was the first secretary of the interior to previously serve as governor, senator and mayor, Bush said at Kempthorne’s swearing-in. Those experiences made him uniquely qualified for the job, and also very familiar with such ceremonies, Bush quipped.
Before Bush appointed Kempthorne to join his cabinet, the president heavily considered him to lead the Environmental Protection Agency. Kempthorne lost out to Utah’s governor, only to be picked by Bush three years later to run the Interior Department.
After leaving public office, Kempthorne accepted a leadership post with the U.S. life insurance industry — an issue of particular importance to the former governor. His parents dealt with health issues into their latter years, and had limited resources to rely upon for medical coverage before their respective deaths, he said.
“My mom was the most loving and giving person I have ever known, she always helped others with a genuine smile and a servant’s heart,” Kempthorne said in 2023. “My dad was a tough taskmaster and from him I learned what a true work ethic is all about.”
Kempthorne held his positions as president and CEO of the American Council of Life Insurers, which involved lobbying before Congress, for eight years before exiting in 2018.
In recent years, Kempthorne served as board chair of The Peregrine Fund, which works to protect birds of prey and their habitat, and also as a board member for FMC Corp., a chemical manufacturing company; Olympic Steel Inc.; and Boise-based recruiting firm Robert Half Inc.
Kempthorne also chaired the commissioning advisory committee for the USS Idaho, a new 377-foot-long Navy nuclear fast-attack submarine, dubbed “The Silent Spud,” that joined the fleet Saturday — the morning after Kempthorne’s passing. In a rare move, the vessel’s engine room was formally named for Kempthorne, and a plaque adorns its wall calling him a “driving force” for the state of Idaho.
Kempthorne was scheduled to give the keynote address at the submarine’s weekend commissioning ceremony in Connecticut, but had decided to forgo those plans as his health worsened. Kempthorne did more than anyone to bring the USS Idaho to fruition, Risch said Saturday at the event. He delivered his colleague’s prepared remarks on his behalf, praising Kempthorne’s amazing speaking abilities, and said how unfortunate it was that attendees did not get to hear the speech directly from the man who composed it.
“Sometimes it as if the planets align to form something perfect — something that is destined to happen,” Risch said, reading Kempthorne’s words. “So it is with SSN-799 USS Idaho.
“Esto perpetua: May it be forever.”
Kempthorne, who long maintained his connection to the military following the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, helped plan and raise local funds to charter a flight out for Americans and Afghans stuck in the country after the Taliban retook power. According to Kempthorne, nearly 400 people got out on the private plane, most of whom were later relocated to the U.S.
“We brought out a lot of allies that were in danger that will now become Americans,” he told KIVI-TV. “They’re going to … make us even greater as a nation.”
Kempthorne was preceded in death by his parents, mother Maxine Kempthorne and father James H. Kempthorne, Jr., both of Banning, California, and older brother James H. Kempthorne III, of Highland, California. He is survived by his older brother Mark Kempthorne, of Highland, California; his wife of 49 years, Patricia Kempthorne; his daughter, Heather Kempthorne Myklegard, and son-in-law Drew Myklegard, of Arlington, Virginia; his son, Jeff Kempthorne, and daughter-in-law Natasha Kempthorne, of Boise; and seven grandchildren.
Years ago, at his swearing-in on the South Lawn of the White House, Kempthorne said that the sugar maple Teddy Roosevelt planted in Boise — where he had proposed to his wife — came down in a powerful storm in his waning days as Idaho’s governor.
He ensured that a replacement was quickly put in its place with the help of schoolchildren, Kempthorne said. Knowing they were there the day it was planted, with the chance to watch it grow, would be meaningful to them, he said.
“The simple joy of planting a tree, like so many things that we take for granted, is made possible because we are free, able to enjoy God’s creation,” Kempthorne said. “If we nurture in our children, and in all of us, a passion for stewardship, Americans will benefit for generations to come.”
This story was originally published April 25, 2026 at 11:58 AM.
