50 years after making history, Pocatello

POCATELLO — Before Dr. Thomas L. Purce became Pocatello's mayor 50 years ago in 1976, a cabinet director or a university president, he was just a kid from the Gate City's historic Triangle District. It was a tight-knit pocket of the city bounded by railroad tracks, a community that quietly shaped one of Idaho's most consequential careers. "We were a small but large, powerful community," Purce said. The Triangle District wasn't just a neighborhood. It was, by design, a boundary. Restricted housing policies kept Black, Asian, Greek, Italian and Hispanic residents confined to that part of the city. "We all grew up together," Purce said. "We were kind of a mini melting pot." Purce's roots run deep in Idaho. His grandfather, Tracey Thompson, was a well-known rodeo star. His father, John Purce, came from Virginia after World War II as one of many Black soldiers stationed in Pocatello, met his mother and stayed, going to work for the railroad. Every summer, John put the Purce children on a passenger train back East to spend time on their grandmother's farm in Virginia with the wider family. Come fall, they returned to Pocatello and school. His parents, John and Idaho Purce, were pillars in Pocatello's civic life, known figures in housing advocacy and public health. They made clear that their children were expected to go to college and give back to the community. One sister became an attorney. Another rose to vice president of communications at a community college. A brother ran a major division of Social Security in California. Les would go furthest into public life, though he is quick to redirect the credit. "People would say, 'Are you John Purce's boy? Well, if you're John's boy, I'm gonna vote for you,'" he recalled with a laugh. The family name was well known in Pocatello, but Purce quickly built a public reputation of his own. Purce attended Bonneville Elementary, later went to Franklin Junior High and Pocatello High before enrolling at Idaho State University, where he earned a bachelor's degree in psychology in 1969, a master's degree in student personnel in 1970 and a doctorate in counselor education in 1975. He served as student body vice president along the way, an early sign that governance came naturally. In 1973, at 25 years old, Purce was elected to the Pocatello City Council, becoming the first Black elected official in Idaho. Three years later in 1976, the year of the nation's bicentennial, he became Pocatello's first Black mayor. He was 29. "I was really interested in some key issues that were around at that point," he said. "Housing and then there were the environmental issues that existed around the factories and the plants and how you could improve the air quality." Purce served as mayor through 1977, when Gov. John Evans appointed him director of Idaho's Department of Administration. He later became director of the Department of Health and Welfare, running the largest agency in the state at age 32 during one of its most turbulent periods. The Reagan administration's deep cuts to federal funding forced him into impossible territory, choosing between social workers helping abused children and food assistance for families living in extreme poverty. As director, those cuts meant he personally had to sign termination letters to roughly 250 state social workers whose positions were eliminated as a result. "It was so hard, sleepless nights and all of that stuff," he said. "But in the end, years later and in other positions, it teaches you something about being wise with your judgment." "I would be in the oddest places and people would say, 'You fired me once,'" he recalled. Many of those same people told him the layoff had become a turning point, pushing them back to school, into new careers and toward lives they might never have found. He was moved by those stories, though he never lost sight of those for whom it was simply devastating. "The work of public service is really that," he said. "It's tied directly to people and their lives and how they survive and their ability to be able to survive and have a good, healthy life for them and their kids." After more than a decade in Idaho state government, Purce moved into the corporate sector before returning to higher education, eventually serving as president of Evergreen State College in Washington from 2000 to 2015. His wife, Jane, also holds an Idaho State University doctoral degree and served as vice provost for academic policy and evaluation at Washington State University. They retired the same year, 2015, and have three daughters: Deborah, Sarah and Miriam, the latter of whom is a Special Olympics swimming champion. Retirement, it turned out, was not in his nature. Washington's governor tapped Purce to co-chair a task force on the declining Southern Resident orca population. The two-year effort produced millions in state appropriations for habitat restoration, road runoff cleanup and salmon recovery. Three years ago, he joined the Northwest Power and Conservation Council, representing Washington as a fish and wildlife advocate, helping balance the Bonneville dams' energy output against the health of Pacific Northwest salmon runs. In May 2026, a proposal for an AI data center to take over the Hoku site was brought to the Pocatello area. The proposal sparked controversy throughout the community. It is in this role and his experience dealing with energy and conservation issues that Purce's voice could carry particular value. "Government has to be able to get a comprehensive understanding of the impact of data centers," he said. "What are the safeguards to ensure that our water's protected and that these adequate environmental resources are being recognized and met as one of the costs that they have an obligation for?" Purce warned that the pace of development could carry serious long-term consequences for communities and future generations if the implications aren't fully understood and managed. "There's been absolutely no public disclosure regarding impacts," he said. "There are private disclosure deals, nondisclosure deals with communities and all of these items we have to acknowledge and have conversations with." Purce sees a path forward, but only if government, developers and communities are willing to do the slower work of building it together. He pointed to demand-management agreements, in which data centers help fund or maintain their own backup power, as one tool that could ease pressure on regional grids without slowing the broader rollout of the technology. "There's got to be policy work and engineering design work done to put those things in place," he said. "And we're playing catch-up. That's the challenge." His prescription is the same one he has applied across five decades: gather the right people, ask hard questions, build critical mass and write policy that holds. When asked what single thread connects all of his public service and career paths, his answer was immediate. "Just people," he said. "Friendships and colleagues and family and having fun. You have to find joy in the kind of work you're doing." On Aug. 16, Purce will return to Pocatello for his mother's 100th birthday celebration at Purce Park, the community green space named for his parents, just blocks from the Triangle District where it all began. The man who made history in 1976, the year America turned 200, will be home as the country turns 250. Purce Park, located adjacent to the Pocatello Senior Activity Center, was renamed in the family's honor after a $40,000 grant from Wells Fargo and a $10,000 contribution from the Ifft Foundation transformed the formerly neglected Bonneville Community Park into a renovated green space with new playground equipment, benches, tables and bocce ball courts. NeighborWorks Pocatello and the Bonneville Neighborhood Association were instrumental in bringing the project to fruition. Fifty years after becoming Pocatello's first Black mayor, Les Purce is still at work.