After watching residents line Lovell’s main street to welcome home the remains of Vietnam War veteran 1st Lt. Ray Krogman, Tim Beck was struck with a thought.

“There’s people that have given their lives, given their limbs, made untold sacrifices, so that we can have what really is the greatest system of self governance in the world,” said Beck, whose uncle also died in Vietnam, “and when we choose to not participate, we’re displaying the greatest disrespect.”

The thought helped lead the Lovell rancher to launch a campaign for the Wyoming Legislature. Beck is seeking to replace Rep. Jamie Flitner, R-Greybull, in House District 26, as Flitner is not seeking a third term.

“The thing that makes the Legislature interesting,” Beck said, “is that we can either sit back and complain about the rules and the regulations and the laws, or we can choose to participate in the creation of the regulations — and/or deregulation.”

As a conservative, Beck said he feels that government regulations and laws “have stymied a lot of the creative processes in our society” and that people have the responsibility and privilege of taking care of themselves.

“I do not believe that the government should be a nanny state over us,” he said.

Beck said he doesn’t have an ax to grind, nor is his campaign being driven by one particular issue. Rather, he said he’d like to be involved in several of the ongoing discussions in the Legislature.

For instance, he watched with interest a bill brought by House Speaker Eric Barlow, R-Gillette, that would have switched Wyoming’s budget development to a cash basis. Beck said it would have had the state generally fund its budgets with revenues already in the bank instead of with revenue it expects to receive.

“As we look at the potential recession in our nation, and remembering the concept of the gold standard that was pre-1974, the economic position, the economic strength that Wyoming would sit in by having a cash system, in my mind, has just appealing potential,” Beck said, saying citizens and businesses have to operate on a cash basis.

“Now, the devil’s in the details,” he added. “How do you make that transition? What are all the things that are gonna happen? But I think that the concept is the most imaginative thing I’ve heard coming out of our leadership in years. And I think that’s a discussion that would be good fun to be part of.”

Beck was raised in Basin and attended Northwest College, where he played basketball. After a mission in Alaska for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, he went on to graduate from Valley City State University in North Dakota and obtained his master’s in education from Wayne State College in Nebraska.

He coached at State University of New York College of Agriculture and Technology in upstate New York before returning to the Big Horn Basin.

Beck has been involved with the Big Horn County and Wyoming Farm Bureau for the past 20 years — which got him interested in state policy — alongside roughly 30 years volunteering with Big Horn County Search and Rescue and 20 years of service on the Big Horn County Weed and Pest board.

After moving to the Lovell area in 1992, Beck worked in masonry — helping to build Northwest College’s Hinckley Library and Math and Science Building, among other structures — and helped start a family bakery selling bread and granola. 

For the past 15 years, he’s run the family’s ranching operation, raising Angus cattle and Boer goats. Rep. Flitner has been among his customers and he’d told her years ago that he’d like the opportunity to run for the seat when she was finished. 

When Flitner told him in December that she wouldn’t be seeking reelection, “I said, ‘OK, then I’m going to try to step up,’” Beck recalled. “And so I’ve been getting my world in order. … We need to serve.”

Under the new plan recently approved by the Legislature, House District 26 includes a portion of the eastern Willwood area, some spots north and east of Powell, Garland, Frannie, Deaver, Byron, Cowley, Lovell, Greybull and Shell.