This month, we are remembering another Middleton woman, Becky Foote O’Meara, who unfortunately lived a much shorter life, due to cancer, but who also had a significant impact on preserving Middleton’s history.

Becky not only helped to preserve Middleton’s history, but her family IS also Middleton’s history. Her great-grandfather was the first Mayor of a newly incorporated village. Her grandfather served as mayor a generation later. Six generations of Foote family members have attended Middleton schools.

Becky was the owner, publisher, and editor-in-chief of the Middleton Gazette for twenty years and never missed a business opening, a sports championship game, a Fourth of July celebration, or any significant happening in the town. Notices of weddings, anniversary celebrations, babies, school carnivals, community fund-raisers, and graduations were a staple of the Gazette.

An article in the Idaho Press in November 2015, had this to say: “O’Meara and her family’s love of Middleton resonate through the community and through the Middleton Gazette. O’Meara tries to keep her paper upbeat and celebrate the good news happening in her community. ‘The daily papers can keep the murders and the crime,’ O’Meara said. ‘If you want to put a story in the Gazette, send it to me. I like to keep it upbeat.’”

The commitment of these women to Middleton’s life and history has left a rich legacy for today’s residents. We owe them our gratitude and our continuing commitment to Middleton’s unique history as Canyon County’s oldest town.