What You Didn't Know About Sen. Max Baucus
By Stephanie Salmon
Posted 11/10/06
- Max Sieben Baucus was born on Dec. 11, 1941, in Helena, Mont. The family ranch, Sieben Ranch, which his great-grandfather Henry Sieben started in 1897, includes land featured in A River Runs Through It. Baucus often gives copies of the book to visitors to his Senate office.
- He's married to Wanda Minge, who served as a staff aide to Sen. Dale Bumpers of Arkansas. He has a son, Zeno, by his first wife, journalist Ann Geracimos. Zeno Baucus is an attorney in Washington, D.C.
- His favorite book as a child was Thidwick, the Big-Hearted Moose.
- He attended Carleton College in Minnesota for a year before transferring to Stanford University. He graduated from Stanford in 1964 with a bachelor's degree in economics and from Stanford Law School in 1967.
- In his first Senate campaign, Baucus participated in the annual Buckin' Horse sale in Miles City, Mont. The event was not one of his more successful outings--he finished last in a donkey-pulling contest down the town's main street, and in the bronc-riding contest he was able to stay on bronc horse No. 777 for only 3½ seconds before being thrown.
- During the 1996 campaign, Baucus walked 820 miles across Montana.
- His recipe for huckleberry pie is featured in The Great American Sampler Cookbook: Recipes From the White House and Congress by Linda J. Bauer.
- His hobbies include hunting and fishing, and he's an avid Harley-Davidson enthusiast. In 2000 Baucus, his brother John, and cousins Chase and Whit Hibbard attended the famed Harley rally in Sturgis, S.D. In 2004, Baucus suffered a head injury when he swerved to miss a car and crashed his Harley into a guardrail in Montana.
- In 2004, Wanda Baucus was arrested on a misdemeanor charge after getting into a fight with a woman at a garden center. She was able to avoid prosecution by entering a first-offenders program that required her to complete 40 hours of community service.
- On Sept. 13, 2006, Max Baucus cast his 10,000th Senate vote, becoming one of only 27 in the history of the Senate who have cast that many votes.