Leading federal officeholders born in Idaho include Ezra Taft Benson (1899–1994), secretary of agriculture from 1953 to 1961 and president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints; and Cecil D. Andrus (b.Oregon, 1931), governor of Idaho from 1971 to 1977 and 1987 to 1995, and secretary of the interior from 1977 to 1981. Maverick Republican William E. Borah (b.Illinois, 1865–1940) served in the US Senate from 1907 until his death. Frank Church (1924–84) entered the US Senate in 1957 and became chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1979; he was defeated in his bid for a fifth term in 1980. Important state officeholders were the nation's first Jewish governor, Moses Alexander (b.Germany, 1853–1932), and New Deal governor C. Ben Ross (1876–1946).
Author Vardis Fisher (1895–1968) was born and spent most of his life in Idaho, which was also the birthplace of poet Ezra Pound (1885–1972). Nobel Prize–winning novelist Ernest Hemingway (b.Illinois, 1899–1961) is buried at Ketchum. Gutzon Borglum (1871–1941), the sculptor who carved the Mt. Rushmore National Memorial in South Dakota, was an Idaho native. Idaho is the only state in the US with an official seal designed by a woman, Emma Edwards Green (b.California, 1856–1942).
Baseball slugger Harmon Killebrew (b.1936) and football star Jerry Kramer (b.1936) are Idaho's leading sports personalities.