Stallings Doesn’t Get Isu Job

Idaho State University President Richard Bowen says he talked with Richard Stallings about giving him a job, but decided against it because he already has one former Democratic congressman on his staff.

Stallings, a former history professor at Ricks College at Rexburg, lost a U.S. Senate bid to Republican Dirk Kempthorne in 1992. He headed the Nuclear Waste Negotiator’s office until early this year when the small federal agency was abolished.

Bowen said Wednesday Stallings approached him about a job.

“We did discuss the possibility of his taking a job here and I told him I would have to look into it,” he said.

“There never was an offer of a job and I did not withdraw an offer,” he said. “There was no political pressure on me.”

Former Congressman Ralph Harding works as a special assistant to Bowen on development projects.

“I did review whether it would be appropriate,” Bowen said. “Mr. Stallings still is politically active. It probably would be a better thing for the university” if he didn’t become an employee, the president said.

But Bowen said it’s likely that Stallings eventually will be teaching at an Idaho college. “He’s a fine one,” he said. “He was a very fine professor at Ricks.”

Stallings said he’s doing some consulting work and looking at “a variety of options, some in the state and some out of state. So far, the offers are tentative and not firm.”

Stallings worked under contract at ISU after the 1992 election but gave it up when he took the nuclear waste position.

He said he felt he could help Idaho State get through some tough times, with reductions at the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory, a new farm bill and diminishing student aid.