President-elect Joe Biden has a long history of Idaho connections

Soon after President-elect Joe Biden was elected to the Senate in 1972, his wife and young daughter were tragically killed in an automobile accident. Biden, then just 29 years old (he would turn 30 before his swearing in) was the youngest member of the U.S. Senate. Previously, that distinction belonged to Idaho’s Sen. Frank Church who was elected to the Senate in 1956 at age 32.

Frank and Bethine Church had mentored Biden in his campaign for the Senate. In fact, Church loaned several staff members to the Biden campaign who would later join Biden’s Senate staff. As Biden has said in his grief at the time, he did not want to be sworn in as a senator but needed to care for his two young sons. The Churches and other senators convinced Biden that he could do both, so he agreed to take his Senate seat. Famously, he commuted home on the train to his family Wilmington, Delaware nearly every day of is 36-year Senate career.

Then-Vice President Biden recounted this history in a video when he accepted the Frank and Bethine Church Award for Public Service at a Frank Church Institute dinner in 2010. He paid tribute to both Frank and Bethine Church for their many years of friendship.

President-elect Biden has remained a member of the Honorary Board of Directors of the Frank Church Institute at Boise State University since its inception. In 2009, then Vice President Biden presented the awards at the Special Olympics World Winter Games organized by Jim Grossman, a member of the board of directors of the Frank Church Institute. Another Institute board member, Hollis Brookover, worked closely with Valerie Biden, the sister of President-elect Biden, who managed his Senate campaigns including his campaign for President in 1988.

President-elect Biden has recently named Bruce Reed, a native of Coeur d’Alene, as his Deputy Chief of Staff. Reed, who began his career as an intern on the staff of Senator Church, also served as Chief of Staff for Vice President Biden. And Secretary of State-designate Antony Blinken, the nephew of Ambassador Alan Blinken of Sun Valley, delivered the Distinguished Lecture sponsored by the Frank Church Institute and the Honors College at Boise State in 2014.

Given these many connections, The Frank Church Institute welcomes the inauguration of the next President of the United States, Joseph R. Biden.

This story was originally published January 19, 2021 at 3:15 PM.