- Eli Bebout
Eli Daniel Bebout (born
October 14 ,1946 ), though a veteranWyoming politician , is the newest member of theWyoming State Senate -- he represents District 26 from Riverton, the seat of Fremont County in central portion of his state. A Republican, Bebout (pronounced BEE BOUT) is a former member of theWyoming House of Representatives , Speaker of the House, and his party'sgubernatorial nominee in 2002. He was chosen state senator on a 4-0 vote by the Fremont County Commission to succeed Senator Robert A. "Bob" Peck (October 7 ,1924 -March 6 ,2007 ).Early years, education, business
Bebout graduated from Shoshoni
High School in Fremont County and entered theUnited States Air Force Academy in June 1964. He left the academy in 1967 without graduating. He resigned after complaints surfaced that he had violated thehonor code by covering for the presence of some absent cadets and by allowing questionable tutoring practices. Thereafter, he obtained abachelor of science degree inengineering from theUniversity of Wyoming at Laramie, his state's only four-year degree-granting instituiton. He served in theAir Force Reserve but was not called to active duty during theVietnam War .Bebout owns a water,
oil andnatural gas drilling company, a construction company, and afarm andranch operation. He is president of Nucor Oil and Gas, Inc., in Riverton. He is chairman of the Wyoming Business Alliance and the Wyoming Heritage Foundation, and he is affiliated with thetrade association , the Independent Petroleum Association of America. He is also a member of the National Republican Legislators Association.Republican for Governor
Bebout was not originally Republican, having been first elected to the state House in 1986 as a Democrat. He switched parties early in the 1990s to express his opposition to
U.S. President Bill Clinton . He was thereafter groomed for state leadership by the GOP hierarchy.He became the House Republican Leader in 1997 and Speaker in 1999–2000. In 2002, he challenged the
conservative Raymond Breedlove "Ray" Hunkins of Wheatland, the seat of Platte County. Also in the gubernatorial primary were businessman Bill Sniffin of Lander, former State RepresentativeSteve Watt , and John Self of Sheridan. Bebout ran an advertisement to show that he had strong party support, compared to the maverick rancher andattorney Hunkins. Sniffin attacked Bebout about his employment practices. "Forty-nine state legislators support Eli Bebout for Governor" said one of his commercials. He also won the endorsement of the National Federation of Independent Business, asmall business advocacy group.In what shaped up as a close primary, Bebout gained the support of the party's popular former
U.S. Senator Alan Kooi Simpson, alawyer from Cody and the leader of GOP "moderates". Simpson was particularly vitrilolic in attacks on Hunkins. Bebout received 44,417 votes (49 percent) to Hunkins' 25,363 (28 percent). Sniffin, Watt, and Self split the remaining 23 percent. An outright majority is not required for a party nomination in Wyoming. There has been speculation that the intraparty strife doomed Bebout in thegeneral election .As soon as he had defeated Hunkins, Bebout launched negative attacks on the Democratic nominee, David Duane "Dave" Freudenthal, formerly of Thermopolis, a former
United States Attorney in Cheyenne appointed by President Clinton. He attempted to make an issue of Freudenthal's ties to Clinton. Until the last days of the campaign, Bebout was considered the favorite. One highly inaccurate poll right after the primary had even shown Bebout with an 80-15 percent lead. Freudenthal pulled an upset, 92,662 votes (50 percent) to Bebout's 88,873 ballots (47.9 percent). Bebout won fifteen counties to Freudenthal's eight. The other 1.9 percent went to Libertarian Dave Dawson. In many Republican counties, Bebout ran far behind the norm for a GOP candidate. Some in the media questioned if Bebout's defeat was a slap atVice President of the United States Richard Bruce "Dick" Cheney, who came to Wyoming to campaign for Bebout the Sunday before the Tuesday election. Prognosticators generally said that negative attacks on Freudenthal by Bebout's supporters ultimately backfired.Similar negative attacks may have damaged
U.S. Representative Barbara Cubin in her narrow reelection campaign in 2006.The Wyoming State Senate
Bebout said that his gubernatorial aspirations are behind him as he begins a new political stint as the lowest-tenured state senator. His term extends until November 2008. He has not indicated if he will run for a full term next year. He has been named to the Agriculture, State and Public Lands & Water Resources Committee and the Minerals Committee.
Peck had served in the Senate since 1991 and was chairman of the Senate Revenue Committee and a member of the Senate Education Committee.
Traditionally, House speakers retire from the House, and few have run for the Senate. Former Speaker
Bruce Hinchey , a Casper Republican, served one term in the Senate, 1999-2003. He did not seek re-election in 2002, after he accepted a position as president of the Petroleum Association of Wyoming. Hinchey served on the Senate Appropriations Committee for his four-year Senate term.The Bebout family
Bebout and his wife, Lorraine Joyce Bebout, reside in Riverton. The Bebout children include Jordan Joseph Bebout (born ca. 1978), Reagen Marie Bebout (born ca. 1982), and Taggert Hugh Bebout (born ca. 1984).
Eli Bebout is a survivor of
esophageal cancer .References
http://www.casperstartribune.net/articles/2007/04/04/news/wyoming/d84da5f428404d06872572b300059a27.txt
http://www.conservativetruth.org/archives/christopheradamo/11-17-02.shtml
http://www.wyovoters.org/Publications/NewsArchive/ReleaseBebout10-14-02.htm
http://www.stateline.org/live/ViewPage.action?siteNodeId=136&languageId=1&contentId=15029
http://www.purepolitics.com/EliBeboutgovwy.htm
http://archives.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/11/06/elec02.wy.g.hotrace/index.html
http://www.codycafe.com/News/detail.asp?iData=8689&iCat=2846&iChannel=1&nChannel=News
http://www.touchoilandgas.com/people.cfm?level=2&people_ids=17509
http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=4438
http://soswy.state.wy.us/informat/officers.pdf
http://www.zoominfo.com/people/Bebout_Eli_194065298.aspx
http://www.nfib.com/object/3540771.html
http://www.riverton.wyoming.com/AgendaMinutes/docs/462007_735_07-04-03CouncilMinutes.pdf
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3827/is_200210/ai_n9121924
http://www.legitgov.org/sep02news.html
http://legisweb.state.wy.us/2007/members/s26.htm
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