Former lawmaker and rancher being inducted into Eastern Idaho Ag Hall of Fame
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BLACKFOOT — After more than six decades as a rancher, Dennis Lake is being inducted into the Eastern Idaho Agriculture Hall of Fame.
The 88-year-old Moreland man and his wife, Luann, are among six couples who will be recognized during a ceremony and banquet on March 20 inside the Shoshone-Bannock Hotel and Event Center in Fort Hall. Lake is the founder of Snake River Livestock Company and Lake Family Ranches, a cattle feedlot with a capacity of 9,000 head. Lake was also a longtime owner and partner in the Blackfoot Livestock Auction and a former member of the Idaho House of Representatives.
The Hall of Fame, which was established in 1972, honors individuals for their dedication, leadership and contributions to agriculture in eastern Idaho. The individuals are nominated and voted on by the Eastern Idaho Agriculture Hall of Fame’s board of directors.
Lake served on the Hall of Fame board for 38 years and is familiar with how it works. In a conversation with EastIdahoNews.com, he was modest about the recognition.
“It’s fine. It’s not something that you seek after,” Lake says. “If people want to take a look at what you’ve done with your life, that’s fine, (but) there are other people far more entitled to be there than me.”
Lake established Snake River Livestock Company in 1959 after 11 years with Basic American Foods. The ranch started as a purebred pig operation before transitioning to cattle.
While Lake is still involved in the business side of the family ranch, he says his sons, Bruce and Tracy, are the current owners. His oldest son, Rodney, is a potato grower in the Burley area.
As a first-generation rancher, Dennis says he’s thrilled to see his sons take over the family operation and hopes it continues with his grandkids.
“Hopefully, it gets passed to one more generation. But … unless we get some of the girls involved, I’m running out of sons who want or are able to do it,” says Lake.
Lake’s early life
Dennis was born on Oct. 5, 1937, in Rigby. His dad, James Morgan Jr. — who died in 2020 at age 104 — was the postmaster in town for more than 40 years, according to his obituary. He served on Rigby’s Planning and Zoning Commission for several years and was a member of the Rigby Lion’s Club. Morgan also helped introduce white tail deer to east Idaho.
Dennis’s grandfather, James Morgan Lake Sr., was a dairyman and bought a ranch in Hamer and Kilgore when Dennis was about 11 years old.
“I was the oldest grandson, so when it came time to do something with the cattle, I was the main man,” Dennis recalls.
Dennis has fond memories of trailing cattle with his grandpa from Rigby to Hamer in the spring, Hamer to Kilgore in the summer, Kilgore to Hamer in the fall, and from Hamer to Rigby in December.
After graduating from Rigby High School, Dennis went on to obtain an accounting degree from Brigham Young University.
With no one to take over the ranch, James sold it. After 11 years as an accountant at Basic American Foods, Dennis launched Snake River Livestock Company with his former boss, Ralph Harding, and some other partners. Dennis says his motivation for starting what was initially a pig operation stemmed back to his involvement in Future Farmers of America as a kid. He had pigs for FFA projects.
He remembers bringing home old milk and bread from his job at Safeway Supermarket to feed his pigs.
“I fattened hogs on bread and milk,” he says.
In 1960, Harding, a Democrat from Malad, successfully ran for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, where he served for the next four years. Dennis bought out all his partners the following year and became the sole owner of Snake River Livestock Company.
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It was a pig operation up until the 1970s, when it gradually transitioned to an exclusively cattle operation.
Snake River Livestock Company fed potato byproducts to its animals for years, and that played a role in its transition.
“We were not very good nutritionists back then. We didn’t realize that potato byproducts and growing hogs was not compatible,” says Dennis. “I got to messing around feeding some Holstein steers at the same time, and I could see that was going to work. That’s probably what motivated me to buy out my partners.”
For Dennis, working alongside family members has been the most rewarding aspect of ranch life.
Lake’s political life
Dennis was elected to the Idaho House of Representatives in 1995 and served for the next 16 years.
Dennis says it was his neighbor, Allan Larsen — a former gubernatorial candidate who represented Idaho in the Legislature from 1966-1978, and again from 1990-1996 — who asked him to run for his seat.
Although he initially turned it down, Dennis eventually agreed. As a Republican lawmaker, he cites two of his proudest accomplishments during his years in office. One of them was a bill to consolidate school bond elections. At the time, Dennis says school districts could call for a school bond election at any time during the year. His bill narrowed down the bond election times to March, May, August and November.
“It was a big deal, at the time, because schools had learned how to manipulate elections by holding them on off days. Their favorite time to have an election was Memorial Day weekend,” says Dennis.
In 2023, a bill was introduced to eliminate elections in March and August.
A major tax overhaul in 2006 is another one of Dennis’s proudest political achievements. House Bill 1 was passed during a one-day special legislative session. It cut $260 million in school property taxes. The legislation eliminated the “maintenance and operations” property tax levy for schools and created a public education stabilization fund by increasing the sales tax from 5% to 6%.
By 2012, Dennis says he’d served 16 years in the Legislature — two years longer than he’d planned. With several people vying for his seat, he decided to step down.
‘Few people are more deserving than him’
After nearly 70 years in agriculture, Dennis says he’s grateful for the life he’s led and the contributions he’s been able to make in the ag industry.
Dennis’s grandson, Dexton Lake, continues to advocate for Idaho agriculture as a lobbyist. Dexton is the government affairs representative for the Idaho Farm Bureau Federation. He says his grandfather’s involvement in ag and politics over the years inspired him to “make a difference for the ag industry” in his own way.
“Watching him go from out in the field to the Capitol got me interested in politics. I couldn’t think of anything else I was more passionate about advocating for than agriculture,” says Dexton.
Dexton says his grandpa’s induction into the Ag Hall of Fame is well-deserved, and he appreciates his efforts and example over the years.
“For someone who has had a prolific agricultural career, but also a career devoted to public service — very few people are more deserving than him,” says Dexton.
Longtime Idaho Farm Bureau Federation member Rick Keller, of Chubbuck, is among the other inductees. Others include Shawn Walters of Newdale; a fourth-generation sheep rancher, Jeff Siddoway and his wife, Cindy, from Terreton; and David Crapo of St. Anthony.
A banquet and ceremony will be held in their honor on March 20. A dinner and reception will precede the ceremony, which starts at 6:30 p.m. The public is invited to attend. To buy tickets or learn more, click here.
