Elected Montana’s lieutenant governor in 1960, Tim Babcock was thrust into higher office when Governor Donald Nutter died in a plane crash one year into their administration. Placing his trucking company, Babcock & Lee, in the hands of his brothers and a trusted friend, Babcock served out the term, being elected in his own right in 1964.

He later built the Colonial Inn Motel and Convention Center in Helena; owned the historic Davenport Hotel in Spokane, Washington, and Ox Bow cattle ranch, in Wolf Creek, Montana; and owned Helena’s KBLL radio and television stations. Babcock also stayed active in Republican politics as a national committeeman. In his late eighties, he works as a partner in Montana Ethanol Company.

His wife Betty has been at his side in politics and business since they were married in 1941. She served as a Montana legislator, and was an elected delegate to the convention that rewrote Montana’s constitution in 1972. Her First Ladies’ Cookbook has seen many printings to benefit various charities. Betty Babcock continues to be a tireless volunteer for multiple nonprofit groups.

This joint biography tells the stories of the personal and public challenges they have met, and reveals an ongoing optimism that has carried them through the best times and also through their lives’ tragedies. Extensive quotations cover Tim’s World War II experience in the Battle of the Bulge and Betty’s as a young mother on the home front; their daughters, Lorna and Marla; campaigning and serving in office; the years in the Montana Governor’s Mansion; coping with public lives; business successes and failures; Tim’s involvement, through employer Armand Hammer, in the Watergate scandal of the 1970s; and their continuing activity for causes close to their hearts.

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