I first met Dirk Kempthorne when we were juniors at the University of Idaho and running for student body president. We were waiting to be interviewed by a radio station in downtown Moscow.

While we waited, we asked each other the proverbial question that college students ask: What do you plan to do after you graduate? I told Dirk that I planned to pursue a career in journalism. He said that he was planning to seek political office and make public service his career.

One thing I learned about Dirk over the last 52 years is that when he set his mind to do something he nearly always achieved success. At the age of 22 Dirk knew exactly what he wanted to do in life and then he went out and did it.

Dirk had what is probably the greatest resume in Idaho political history. Two terms as mayor of Idaho’s largest city. One term in the U.S. Senate. Two terms as governor of Idaho. And one of the few Idahoans to ever serve in a president’s cabinet, as Secretary of Interior under President George W. Bush.

Our friendship was rare for a politician and a journalist. The founding fathers envisioned that these two professions would be the pillars of their new republic. They also envisioned that at times politicians and journalists would clash, which they believed would only strengthen the democracy.

Over the years Dirk and I did a good job of being friends without compromising our professional and personal integrity. We never let politics and media interfere with our friendship and we never let our friendship interfere with our respective responsivities as servants to the public.

Dirk was the last of the significant Idaho politicians who carried the mantel of the Republican Party’s first president Abraham Lincoln. Dirk believed in limited government, but he also believed in a government that worked to improve the lives of the people. I believe he would have been aghast at disinvesting in institutions like higher education and other programs that served the people, economy, and quality of life in Idaho.

As governor, Dirk championed a method of financing transportation infrastructure in a creative and effective way. He also championed the Idaho state parks system knowing that our parks allow Idaho families to experience the soul-refreshing splendor of our great state. It is only fitting that the headquarters of Idaho’s popular Ponderosa State Park was named in his honor.

But Dirk’s most important legacy is how he supported public education and endeavored to give our youngest children a strong and healthy start in life. Dirk and Patricia, his wonderful first lady, worked tirelessly for early education. I am sure Patricia will continue that all-important work.

Dirk and I crossed paths many times over the past half century. Two years after we graduated from college, we started a three-person scripture study group. Then, as couples, we joined with friends to have dinners regularly, the hosts always selecting the menu and everyone chipping in. We also enjoyed excursions to McCall and Stanley, enjoying Idaho’s great outdoors.

I still remember the night when we were at a restaurant in downtown Boise and Dirk said he planned to run for the U.S. Senate in 1992. He said he wasn’t sure if he could win but set the goal of at least running a good, credible race. Of course, he won.

In 2021, when I was working on a book about former Governor Phil Batt, I asked Dirk to write one of the chapters. He had been Phil’s campaign manager in 1982 when he ran for governor. Dirk revealed some interesting Idaho political history in that piece. One morning Phil knocked on his door and urged him to give up his Senate seat, run for governor in 1998, and replace him in the governor’s office.

I have always thought that Dirk was born to be a public servant. He had a voice as smooth and calming as honey. He had a great, often self-deprecating sense of humor. When he talked to you, he would look you in the eyes and make you feel like you were the most important person in the world to him. He wasn’t one of those people whose eyes wander about the room to see if there is someone more important to talk to.

It is hard to believe or accept that Dirk is gone. He lived such an interesting and successful life that you thought he would be around for a long, long time.

As Dirk fought cancer over the last few months, he and I exchanged texts, but we never managed to meet in person and talk. I regret that very much.

Dirk was a public servant right up until the end of his life. He was the driving force behind the building of the USS Boise, a state-of-the-art submarine that was commissioned on Saturday, the day after Dirk died. It is a tragedy that he did not live long enough to see that dream turned over to the Navy for the defense of our country.

Henry David Thoreau once said. “If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.”

Dirk Kempthorne was a man who advanced confidently toward his dream of public service and endeavored to live the life he was meant to live. And few people I have known achieved so much success “unexpected in common hours.”