“Friday, January 17th is the 10-year anniversary of Becky Lockhart’s death at 46 years old and yet it seems like it was just yesterday,” Stan Lockhart, who was her husband, shared with me. “The only woman to be Utah Speaker of the House was just finishing up her 16 years in the Utah Legislature when she began having dizzy spells or vertigo. Two months later she was dead, succumbing to Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD), an always fatal neuro-degenerative condition.
“Time flies. One of my favorite scriptures includes the phrase, ‘our lives passed away like as it were unto us a dream,’ and truly that is what life has been. The years go by so quickly, turning to decades. In the midst of grief, I couldn’t comprehend being without Becky for a long time. Yet here we are a decade later. It’s the missed memories that are especially hard. She was so talented and had so much still to give. Politically, she was an expert on legislative process, consensus building and navigating political currents. But more importantly, she was a wonderful wife, mother, daughter, sister and friend.
“There is so much to say about Becky and so little space to do it. She died at the top of her game, in the prime of her life. Let me tell you of her personality to hopefully inspire others who may shy away from the spotlight: Becky was an introvert. Shortly before she died, she asked me to read the book ‘Quiet’ by Susan Cain so I could better understand her. It helped me see how hard it was for her to be in the public eye. She was much more comfortable retreating to her quilting room to quilt and watch English period movies like Little Women and Pride and Prejudice.”
Rhonda Lauritzen, her biographer, said this of Becky: “Although confident, fearless, and with a wonderful sense of humor, she had a self-effacing personality that deflected attention from herself. She turned the limelight to others and considered her role as one of facilitating collaboration and ensuring that all voices were heard … The world needs more Becky Lockharts.”
“Amen. The world needs more Becky Lockharts,” Stan said.
Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson
Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson entered the Utah Senate the year that Becky entered her third year as Speaker. She remembers Becky as a friend and mentor – but, she says, “I was also a little afraid of her. One time, when I was new to politics, I watched her skillfully question a man during a legislative hearing until he tied himself into knots. It was like viewing a slow motion train wreck for that poor guy.
“She was brilliant, which also made her a bit intimidating. Not everyone on Capitol Hill knew quite what to do with her, and as a result she didn’t always get treated with the respect she deserved. From her, I learned that leadership is not about getting everything you want or winning every battle at all costs. A true leader knows how to make tough choices, compromise to get to yes, listen and learn from others, and sometimes stand alone. I can’t believe she’s been gone for 10 years.
Derek Brown
Utah Attorney General Derek Brown remembers that as a newly elected member of the Utah House of Representatives, Speaker Lockhart was a “behind-the-scenes mentor and friend.” He admired “how she mastered the art of leading with an ‘iron fist in a velvet glove.’ She was a perfect blend of warmth and resolve. Calm and composed under fire.
“I’ll never forget a stressful caucus lunch meeting we had during the legislative session,” he shared. “Doors were closed. The issue was critical to Utah. We all knew what needed to be done. Yet, there were members who were concerned about casting that vote because of potential criticism.
“Speaker Lockhart sat there, both serene and thoughtful, as House member after House member complained, grumbled, and even yelled. At a critical moment in the debate, when frustrations had been thoroughly aired and she had heard enough, Speaker Lockhart stood up, slammed her fist down on the desk and sternly looked at 50 or so House members in that room — most of them men. With a slight grin, and a voice of complete resolve, she looked right at the caucus members and said, ‘That’s enough! Now it’s time to put on your big boy pants.’
“She was right. We knew it. We laughed, and the matter was resolved. While many of us there have since laughed about ‘putting on our big boy pants’ when something difficult needed to be done, that day I gained a new level of admiration and love for Utah’s first female Speaker of the House.”
Curt Bramble
Former state Sen. Curt Bramble, a legislative colleague and close family friend, remembered that “one of the greatest attributes Becky had was that she wanted to be recognized for her abilities and given opportunities because of her abilities” and not simply because she was a woman.
“Becky believed her position as speaker was to work for the caucus. Her management and leadership style was ‘bottom-up.’” She wanted to “let people develop, let them bloom, let them be the best they could be and her role as speaker was to encourage and aid that development and the success of her members, rather than ‘top-down, my way or the highway.’
“She balanced being a mother, wife, and friend, with being speaker and representing her constituents. She never forgot where her roots were,” he said.
“It is stunning how fast time flies, but we see vestiges of Becky’s legacy with other strong women now coming into the House and looking at her as a role model. Her legacy was to blaze a trail for women in leadership.
“We lost one of Utah’s great leaders when she died prematurely. We miss her dearly.”
Jen Seelig
Former minority leader in the House when Becky served as speaker, Jen Seelig remembers Becky as a remarkable leader and public servant. “It’s incredible that it has already been 10 years since we lost Becky,” she said. “Becky knew how to effectively navigate the machinations of power and party while standing with a giant heart and strong backbone. She was firm in her love for family and for the state of Utah. She wasn’t afraid to open and facilitate a ‘marketplace of ideas’ — regardless of the source. If you could compete, and demonstrate the benefits to Utah, she helped create a pathway for success.
“She held public service to the highest standards, and character mattered to her. So did good government, and by that, she meant government that actively worked to represent all of Utah, not just members of her political party. She was my colleague, my policy competitor, my policy partner, my mentor, and my dear friend. I really miss her.”
Joe Pyrah
Joe Pyrah was Becky’s Chief Deputy and reflected on his time working with her. “When your name is on a building (the Utah House building bears her name), all the amazing things that could be said about you have likely already been said,” he wrote.
“Becky Lockhart has had a lot of things said about her, so if I could find something that may have slipped through the cracks it would be that she was incredibly self-aware. As her chief deputy over her four years as speaker, I was occasionally privy to moments of pause; moments when she realized that perhaps the unrelenting praise was subject to terms and conditions.
“‘It’s really hard,‘ she said once, ‘not to eventually believe all the amazing things people tell you about yourself.’
“She countered that by remembering the little things, and doing normal things: never turning down a school group who asked for an appearance, championing unheralded issues like the Drug Offender Reform Act, or climbing up on her own roof to fix the swamp cooler.
“She also knew failure: She ran unsuccessfully for House leadership multiple times before becoming Speaker. Her 1:1 initiative to get devices like (tablets and laptops) in classrooms in her last session collapsed. And few probably remember that she applied unsuccessfully to be state superintendent. But those failures made her all the more human. They grounded her against the idolization of politicians we so often see, and instead allowed her to be the kind of politician we can respect.”
Holly Richardson
As for me, I became the first representative to be sworn in by her, on Jan. 30, 2011. But it wasn’t the first time I had met Becky. In fact, by that time I had known her for a decade.
She had been a mentor and a friend to me as I got involved in politics for the very first time in 2001. She helped me meet new people, learn the ropes of Utah’s electoral process, and in many ways how to navigate the Utah Legislature. She never made me feel like she was too busy for me, and, even though my newbie questions likely made her want to roll her eyes, she never made me feel dumb for asking them.
A couple of memories of my time in the House stand out. First, I really loved how collaborative she was. She could corral an unruly House when she needed to, but she wanted all ideas to have a chance of being heard. She believed in the process and believed that good bills would rise and bad bills would die. She didn’t put her thumb on the scale, so to speak, for which bills had a chance for discussion.
I also remember talking to her about the hate email I received as a legislator, including death threats. I even learned some new words in my time in the House. She told me she made a game of reading the insults, looking for new ways people could insult her. Most of them were reruns of other insults and she found them unoriginal and uninspiring.
I also loved that she recognized her position of leadership. In one of her last interviews before her death, she said: “Using your real voice might make you uncomfortable. It might make people around you feel uncomfortable, but until we make it normal for women to be heard, until we are heard for our ideas and not viewed as tokens, that’s the price we’ll pay. I, for one, have been willing to pay that price.”
I’m so grateful she did.
Originally published in the Deseret News
