Idaho
Remembering JFK's visit to eastern Idaho amid Trump's effort to declassify assassination files – East Idaho News
IDAHO FALLS – More than 3,000 people filled the auditorium at Pocatello High School as the Democratic senator from Massachusetts stood at the podium to address the crowd.
It was Sept. 6, 1960. The Gate City was one of many stops for John F. Kennedy during the Western states tour of his presidential campaign. Accompanying him during his visit was Idaho’s U.S. Senator, Frank Church, who’d nominated Kennedy at the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles two months earlier.
At the DNC, Kennedy delivered what is now referred to as the “New Frontier” speech, in which he called on Americans to move beyond the status quo and help usher in a modern era of leadership.
“The New Frontier is here, whether we seek it or not,” Kennedy said at the time. “Beyond that frontier are uncharted areas of science and space, unsolved problems of peace and war, unconquered pockets of ignorance and prejudice, unanswered questions of poverty and surplus.”
“I’m asking each of you to be pioneers toward that New Frontier,” Kennedy added.
Kennedy’s speaking style, combined with what many have described as a charismatic personality and youthful good looks, made him an appealing candidate for many voters. At age 43, Kennedy was two months away from being the youngest man ever elected president.
A 2013 article from the Idaho State Journal reports there were about 600 people who waited outside the high school auditorium that day to get a glimpse of Kennedy before his arrival.
As the presidential hopeful began his remarks to the crowd in Pocatello, he praised and endorsed Church, who had been the keynote speaker at the DNC.
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“It was not an accident that he was chosen to keynote the Democratic convention as one of the youngest members of the Senate, as a member of the Senate who has not served out his first term, and coming from a small State, with few electoral votes,” Kennedy said to applause. “That is a testimony not only to Idaho but to Frank Church, and I am delighted with it.”
He voiced his support for a proposal to build a hydroelectric power plant along Burns Creek near Palisades. The bill, which provided electricity for people in the Upper Snake River Valley, had come before the U.S. Senate twice. Kennedy voted for it both times and wanted to see it advance in the House.
He also referenced the National Reactor Testing Station on the desert near Arco, the predecessor to Idaho National Laboratory. Kennedy called it “a key to the development of the peaceful use of atomic energy” and “an important outpost to the new frontier of energy.”
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The work that happens at NRTS is something the nation can be proud of, he said.
“That station is doing an excellent job of testing atomic powerplants and reactors,” Kennedy told the crowd. “Aggressive atomic research and development is needed if this country is going to win the race for peaceful competition.”
Kennedy’s visit to eastern Idaho lasted less than 48 hours, but it left a lifelong impression on many locals. Still, it failed to earn Kennedy a victory in the Gem State.
Voting records show Richard Nixon, Kennedy’s Republican opponent, carried Idaho in the general election with nearly 54% of the popular vote.
Though Kennedy went on to win the general election nationwide with 303 electoral votes, compared to Nixon’s 219, he only had a .17% lead in the popular vote. As Brad Meltzer points out in his new book about JFK, Kennedy’s victory was the smallest popular vote margin of any presidential candidate of the 20th century, and so far, the 21st century.
Kennedy had a little over a year left in his term when he was assassinated on November 22, 1963. He never visited Idaho while in office, but he did sign several bills into law that impacted the Gem State. Among them is a reclamation project that provided irrigation water for more than 5,000 acres of land near Weiser. In 1963, S. 1007 gave consumers in the Pacific Northwest priority access to electricity generated by federal hydroelectric plants.
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Days after President Trump signed an executive order calling for the declassification of the JFK assassination files, we thought it was worth looking back at Idaho’s connection with America’s 35th president.
Locals remember JFK
Mark Nye, a Pocatello attorney who served in the Legislature from 2014-2022 and died days after leaving office, was a freshman at Pocatello High School when JFK came to town. He was among the 600 people who waited outside the auditorium for his arrival.
In a 2013 interview with the Idaho State Journal, Nye said the presidential hopeful was viewed like a rock star, similar to Elvis Presley.
“When he came out, the teenage girls were giddy and even jumping up and down in excitement,” Nye said.
Kennedy’s plane reportedly landed at what was then the Pocatello Municipal Airport around 4:30 that morning after a two-hour delay. About 50 people were camped out to greet him.
Church was the first to step off the plane and reportedly asked, “What are all you people doing up at this hour of the morning?”
Meltzer notes in his book that Kennedy loved interacting with crowds during public appearances, and that was his response in Pocatello. He’d planned to sleep on the plane before his first speaking engagement, according to ISJ, but decided to shake people’s hands instead.
Pocatello High School wasn’t the only place where Kennedy spoke. During his trip, he also held a press conference at the Bannock Hotel.
Richard Stallings, another Pocatello Democrat who represented Idaho in Congress from 1985-1993, wasn’t in town that day. He was in Salt Lake City on his way to New Zealand to serve a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Kennedy made a stop in Salt Lake on another leg of his Western states tour and Stallings was able to meet him.
“I said, ‘Welcome to Salt Lake, Mr. President,’” Stallings recalls, noting Kennedy was still a senator. “He gave me a big grin and shook my hand with both hands and moved on.”
Missionary obligations prevented Stallings from voting in that election, but he remembers reading newspapers and following his administration. Stallings wrote several letters to President Kennedy as a missionary, none of which received a reply.
In 1962, Frank Church was seeking re-election for a second term. In a 1981 interview, Church said the President scheduled a stop in Idaho on his behalf. It never happened, due to the Cuban Missile Crisis, but Church said working with administration officials to inform the public about what was happening allowed him to get re-elected.
“In an indirect way, the Administration did assist me,” Church said.
Stallings was attending Weber State University in Ogden when JFK was assassinated.
“I was walking across the parking lot and someone said, ‘The President’s been shot!’ I thought he was talking about the president of the university, and I thought, ‘Why the hell would anyone shoot the university president?’” Stallings recalls.
Moments later, he walked into one of the buildings on campus and saw a group of people gathered around a TV. The news of Kennedy’s death is still a vivid memory that brings tears to his eyes.
“I was a great fan of his,” says Stallings.
Stallings wasn’t the only one who reacted that way. Diane Bilyeu, a former state legislator from Pocatello, had a similar reaction.
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The 89-year-old woman has no memory of Kennedy’s visit to the Gate City, but she still remembers where she was when she heard the news.
“I was in my kitchen listening on the radio and it was such a shock. I was devastated, even though I was not politically active at the time. I loved John Kennedy. He was the reason I became politically active,” says Bilyeu.
Five years later, Bilyeu was elected to a seat in the Idaho Senate. She attended a rally at Idaho State University in 1968 when Robert Kennedy, JFK’s brother, made a stop there during his presidential campaign.
Similarly, JFK’s attendance at Harvard University prompted Nye to enroll there. He sat 10 rows behind the president as a student when Kennedy attended a football game at the private university.
Nye shared with the Journal his memories of watching Kennedy’s funeral procession in Washington, D.C.
“From Pocatello to Massachusetts and back, I was just one, like so many, with a bond and connection to JFK,” Nye said.
People nationwide felt the loss of JFK’s death and Stallings says that what made it so impactful was Kennedy’s ability to “place himself in the homes and the hearts of the people.”
“It was almost like you lost a personal friend or a family member,” says Stallings. “He and Jackie were a dynamic pair. They just attracted people.”
There had never been a president like him, Stallings says. As far as he’s concerned, Kennedy remains one of America’s greatest presidents.
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Amazon’s Prime Video has renewed One Night in Idaho: The College Murders for a second season.
The three new episodes will deliver “first-time, exclusive access to the police and lead investigators who bore the weight of a nation’s obsession and — until now — were unable to tell their story due to a gag order on the case,” the streamer says.
One Night in Idaho: The College Murders comes from director Matthew Galkin (Murder in the Bayou) and showrunner Katie A. King; Liz Garbus’ Story Syndicate produces. They all pivoted when Bryan Kohberger pled guilty to the gruesome crimes.
In 2022, Kohberger brutally stabbed and killed Madison Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves, Ethan Chapin and Xana Kernodle in their Moscow, Idaho rental home. The case spawned a pair of documentary projects, released eight days apart. Compare and contrast Prime Video’s One Night in Idaho: The College Murders and Peacock’s The Idaho Student Murders here.
Season two of One Night in Idaho “follows the law enforcement officers who lived the investigation from the inside, who until now were unable to tell their story. With exclusive access to local detectives and first responders, key members of the Moscow Police Department and the Idaho State Police, and intimate archival material — including bodycam footage, police interviews, and forensic evidence — the series unfolds as both a harrowing police procedural and a deeply personal hero’s journey for the lead investigators,” the synopsis reads. “Viewers are pulled deep into the case through the raw, emotional, first-person perspectives of Lead Detectives Brett Payne and Darren Gilbertson, Police Chief James Fry, and the many men and women who worked alongside them. The season will also check back in with those closest to the case — including friends and family — in the wake of Bryan Kohberger’s shocking plea, offering a fuller picture of where things stand today,” per the description.
The new episodes are executive produced by Galkin, Garbus, King, Dan Cogan, Jon Bardin, Joshua Levine, Tommy Coriale, James Patterson, Bill Robinson and Patrick Santa. Garbus (I’ll Be Gone in the Dark) directed the first season.
One Night in Idaho: The College Murders is produced by Amazon MGM Studios, Paramount Television Studios, Story Syndicate, James Patterson Entertainment and Fairhaven.
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A federal judge on June 16 barred Idaho from fully enforcing a new state law making it a crime, punishable by up to five years in prison, for transgender people to use public restrooms whose designations differ from their sex assigned at birth.
The Idaho statute, the most restrictive among various laws enacted in about 20 U.S. states limiting access of transgender people to bathrooms conforming with their gender identity, was due to go into effect on July 1.
But U.S. District Judge Amanda Brailsford, sitting in Boise, Idaho’s capital, granted a preliminary injunction curtailing the measure’s enforcement while a class-action lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the statute proceeds.
Brailsford’s order allows transgender individuals to continue using single-stall restrooms matching their gender identity, or to use a multi-stall restroom when a single-stall facility is not available on the same floor of a building. Otherwise, the state is free to enforce the law as it applies to multi-user bathrooms, as well as to portions of the law covering public locker rooms and shower facilities, which were not subject to the court challenge.
While the plaintiffs sought a narrowly tailored injunction temporarily barring only what they viewed as the most onerous parts of the statute, they seek a final court ruling that would throw out all restroom restrictions in their entirety.
The thrust of the lawsuit argues that the statute violates the plaintiffs’ rights to due process, equal protection, and privacy under the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
In her 30-page opinion, Brailsford sided with the plaintiffs on the question of due process, finding them likely to prevail on their claim that law enforcement provisions of the measure are unconstitutionally vague.
That finding alone was sufficient, she said, to override the state’s public safety arguments and issue an injunction without yet considering plaintiffs’ privacy and equal protection claims.
Judge not swayed by state’s safety claims
Proponents of the new law have asserted that it aims to make public bathrooms safer and to prevent sexual assault or voyeurism in women’s restrooms by men posing as transgender.
The judge agreed that the state has a valid interest in “promoting bodily privacy and protecting women and children in public restrooms from those who may seek to do harm,” but ruled that those concerns can be addressed by existing criminal laws “without infringing upon plaintiffs’ constitutional rights.”
The plaintiffs have argued that rather than make public restrooms safer, the measure will instead expose transgender people to “likely violence, harassment and psychological harm.”
The Republican-controlled Idaho legislature “relied on inaccurate beliefs and stereotypes about transgender people” in crafting the statute, “conflating transgender people with sexual predators,” the lawsuit asserts.
Idaho is one of about 20 states with some form of bathroom access restrictions for transgender people on the books, according to a tally by the Movement Advancement Project, a think tank that advocates for LGBTQ rights.
Just three other states besides Idaho — Utah, Kansas, and Florida — use the threat of incarceration to enforce such laws. But Idaho’s measure is broader in scope and carries tougher criminal penalties than the others.
The statute makes it a crime to enter a restroom, changing room, or shower designated for the opposite biological sex in government buildings, restaurants, stores, and other private businesses when those facilities are open to the public.
The first offense under the new restrictions would be a misdemeanor, punishable by up to one year in jail, while a second offense within five years would be a felony, carrying a maximum five-year prison sentence.
Idaho passed two previous laws curbing access to bathrooms in public schools and on college campuses to students whose birth sex corresponds to the gender designation of the facility in question, and seeks to enforce those by allowing students to sue if they encounter a transgender person in violation.
Both those statutes are under legal challenge and remain in effect as they wend their way through the courts.
(Reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; editing by Kate Mayberry)
EDITOR’S NOTE: “From the Field” is a weekly newsletter bringing you the latest agriculture news in eastern Idaho.
IDAHO FALLS – As the federal farm bill advances to the U.S. Senate, farmers in eastern Idaho are dealing with one of the worst water shortages in decades and rising commodity prices.
The Farm, Food and National Security Act (HR 7567), which passed the U.S. House of Representatives in April with a vote of 224-200, is the latest iteration of the Agricultural Improvement Act of 2018. The 976-page document addresses many aspects of agriculture.
Jamie Kress, a dryland farmer from Rockland who serves as president of the National Association of Wheat Growers, tells EastIdahoNews.com many of the issues in the bill are intertwined, and that means that “all of it matters” and it’s essential to Idaho’s agricultural economy.
“It provides a tremendous amount of structure to our industry, and it’s all needed,” Kress says. “It’s a big bill, and it’s complicated, but there’s a reason it’s as significant as it is.”
While there isn’t anything in the bill that can help with Idaho’s current water situation, Kress says some parts of it can help address the high price of commodities. Title 1 provides a safety net against income volatility, weather disasters and market disruptions.
Although the bill expired in 2023, it has been extended each year for the past three years. The 2026 update reauthorizes funding for crop insurance programs, low-interest farm loans for land acquisition, or incentives for conservation.
Amid the current challenges, many farmers are facing difficult decisions and have an increased need for these resources. Justin Place farms more than 1,200 acres in Hamer. He says farmers who are unable to plant a crop due to the water shortage are applying for crop insurance to mitigate the loss.
Though some adjustments were made in 2025 to decrease the disparity between production costs and commodity prices, Kress says the data used to create the 2018 bill is now more than 15 years old. The 2026 payments to farmers enrolled in safety net programs fall short because it doesn’t reflect current operating conditions.
“Even with those payments, most producers will still not break even,” says Kress. “It makes it doable to stay in business, but it is not a wealth builder.”
Place says that while relying on government handouts is not ideal, farmers need a place to turn to make things work during times of uncertainty.
“When you have low commodity prices, you need whatever can help things get along,” Place says.
Kress says another important aspect of the farm bill for Idaho is Title 3, which addresses trade. Idaho’s wheat market ranks in the top five nationwide. Kress says about 100 million bushels are grown annually in 42 of the state’s 44 counties. About half of its annual wheat crop is exported to the Philippines, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Thailand and other countries throughout the Pacific Rim. A lot of wheat is also shipped to Mexico.
Title 3 of the farm bill helps broaden the reach of global agriculture exports and promote innovation and economic growth within the industry.
“It’s very important when we look at trade to ensure that we continue having that flow of wheat leaving the state,” Kress says.
Agricultural diversity is one of the Gem State’s distinguishing features, and Kress says the farm bill helps to keep as many food producers in business as possible and sustain the population.
“It provides certainty in a very uncertain industry,” says Kress. “We’re always looking forward in agriculture … and not having something like the farm bill in place creates unease, and that’s difficult.”
Kress and Place are hoping Congress will pass the bill soon. Kress anticipates that HR 7567 will be referred to the Senate Agriculture Committee sometime after July 4.
AG AT-A-GLANCE
New University of Idaho program trains veterans for farming careers
The following is taken from a news release from the University of Idaho.
BOISE – University of Idaho Extension is launching a new incarnation of its Harvest Heroes program to prepare military veterans for careers in small-scale agriculture.
Extension is establishing a farm incubator for military veterans at Spaulding Ranch Park — a 20-acre, historic homestead owned and maintained by Boise Parks and Recreation. Participating veterans will work alongside Extension to grow a market garden, receiving regular hands-on instruction from experts, guest presenters and mentors.
The program will also offer flexible online training and monthly intensive workshops. Enrollment is free and ongoing for veterans and their families, who will have season-long access to an orchard, a beekeeping apiary, a weekly onsite farmers market and accessible gardens featuring adaptive gardening technology for those with disabilities.
Following a season of working together on the community plot, graduates will manage their own incubator plots to advance their farm business ideas with support and minimal risk.
Produce grown by the Harvest Heroes program will be shared among participants and distributed through organizations supporting food insecure veterans and community members.
To get involved or learn more, email harvestheroes@uidaho.edu.
If you have a From the Field story idea, send it to rett@eastidahonews.com. Remember to use ‘From the Field’ in the subject line.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT…
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