Downtown Webster City. Photo: TheCatalyst31, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons.
When the Iowa House convenes in January, its youngest member will be a farmer from Kamrar who plants cover crops with drones.
Beau Klaver, a Republican, won the open Iowa House District 55 seat on Nov. 3, beating Democrat Cynthia Oppedal Paschen. Unofficial results showed Klaver with 8,361 votes, about 64.7%, to Paschen’s 4,552, about 35.2%, the Hampton Chronicle reported. The district covers Franklin and Hamilton counties along with parts of Wright and Story counties, so a slice of Wright County voters will be sending him to Des Moines.
The seat opened up when Republican Shannon Latham decided not to run again.
23 and already busy
Klaver is just past his 23rd birthday. He graduated from Webster City High School in 2022, and he’s the son of Patrice and Jerry Klaver, according to a post-election interview with the Fort Dodge Messenger. He’ll be the youngest member of the House by a couple of years.
He has packed a lot in. He finished an agricultural studies degree at Iowa State University shortly after he started campaigning last spring. During the same stretch he worked as a clerk for state Sen. Annette Sweeney, R-Iowa Falls, kept working on the family farm, and ran his own business, BK Air, which uses drones for agricultural work.
“Running the drone business has prepared me for the House job,” he told the Messenger. “And working with other farmers and employees, it has greatly prepared me for this position.”
Farm issues first
One of the first people Klaver talked to after the election was Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig, who won re-election the same night. Klaver said he wants to work with Naig on beginning farmer loans and on Choose Iowa, the state program promoting Iowa-grown products. He’d like to see it expanded so schools can buy more food from Iowa farms.
The two also talked conservation, specifically buffer strips and cover crops. Klaver has put some of that into practice himself, using his own drones to seed a cover crop of oats and radishes on the family farm.
He thinks water quality could be the issue that brings the parties together. “I think that has been the bipartisan issue that needs to be addressed,” he said. “We all want clean water.”
That’s a live question in this part of the state. North-central Iowa is row-crop country, and the debate over nitrate in rivers and drinking water has put pressure on farmers and lawmakers alike to show that voluntary conservation practices are working.
Keeping young people in Iowa
Like most candidates this year, Klaver talked about prices and jobs. But his campaign also leaned on something closer to his own age group: getting more young people to stay in Iowa after they graduate.
His idea, which he admits would take time, is to exempt five years of state income taxes for graduates who stay in Iowa. “I think we need to look outside the box,” he said.
Paschen, also an Iowa State graduate, has a journalism background and ran for the Iowa Senate in 2024. In this race she argued for more balance in state government and more cooperation between the parties.
Farming and legislating
The Iowa session runs from January into spring, which happens to be when the drone business is quietest. Klaver said his dad and brother will handle more of the day-to-day farm work while he’s in Des Moines, and his three employees at BK Air will cover the business when he can’t. He plans to keep flying drones through summer and fall and handle constituent work around it.
He also said he plans to stay out of the uglier side of politics. “I will stay true to my faith, my family and my word,” he said. “We need to unify and create a better future for the state of Iowa.”
Klaver will be sworn in when the 2027 legislative session opens in January.
Kim Sanders writes for Clarion News Online.