Rep. Kent Haden’s final term representing District 43

By Sky Strauss, Staff Writer
Posted 11/13/24

Mexico’s own Rep. Kent Haden has been reelected to represent District 43 in the Missouri House of Representatives for his final term.

Long before running, Haden’s upbringing in a …

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Rep. Kent Haden’s final term representing District 43

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Mexico’s own Rep. Kent Haden has been reelected to represent District 43 in the Missouri House of Representatives for his final term.

Long before running, Haden’s upbringing in a small, rural community, his first career as a veterinarian and his time spent as an MFA executive, gave him a particular edge in understanding his district consisting of Audrain, Callaway and Monroe counties. 

Going out with a bang, Haden beat Erik Richardson with 76.91% of the votes in Audrain and 83.48% in Callaway.  

Humble beginnings 

Haden was born in Fulton and raised in Hatton in a place he likes to call, “the middle of everywhere in the middle of nowhere”. Hatton was, and still is, recognized as a strong rural community with a church and community center at its heart.

“Virtually everybody when I was growing up were farm families,” remembers Haden. “Some of them had jobs in town but they still always had farming connections.” 

Haden’s hometown relied on agriculture and thrived in part to its neighborly approach which he remembers fondly. Neighbors helping each other to put crops in and haul hay is part of what made Hatton so unique and why it is still around today.

“It's a very vibrant, very active rural community,” Haden assures.

Growing up in Hatton, Haden attended North Callaway High School where he graduated in 1969 before attending the University of Missouri. While completing his undergraduate courses, he had gone back to work on the farm with his father.

“I always grew up as a really big horseman,” says Haden.

During his sophomore year, his mare had suffered some injuries. While he was taking care of her, Haden realized just how much he loved working with animals and from that, his first career was born.

“I enjoyed the vet work, I could do it well and I enjoy the people involved in it so I applied to vet school my junior year and got in,” says Haden. “My senior year of undergraduate was basically my first year of veterinary school.”

Haden went on to study under Don Hudson in Mexico and in his last year of veterinary school, he moved to town. 

Now, Haden and his wife Brenda live in Mexico. They have been married for 51 years and have three children together. Brenda was a teacher in the Mexico Public School district for 28 years, most of which were spent teaching sixth, seventh and eighth grade health.

“About every kid in Mexico in that age group knows her, had her, and so we’ve been very involved in several of the communities in the district we serve,” Haden adds

Corporate experience and a shift in politics 

Haden got his first taste of politics many years before ever announcing his candidacy. 

“In some ways, I was in politics in a different area, corporate politics,” says Haden. 

For 28 years, Haden worked for MFA Incorporated, as part of the management team as well as an executive. He served as vice president in charge of feed and animal health before finding himself without a job “because of politics”.

After losing his job at MFA, Haden went back to work with the state as a district veterinarian and epidemiologist for the Department of Agriculture. In the eight years he served in the Department of Agriculture, he specialized in waste and disease in deer. He was exposed to the interactions between state agencies, specifically his department and the Department of Conservation.

“The reality of it is that if  my constituents knew now what I saw, they wouldn’t be happy with the way state government operated,” explains Haden.

And what he saw were petty power struggles, and inefficiencies from a cost standpoint which he recognized due to his history in management. 

“That literally drove me at a mature age to run and serve the people of my area and try to make state government more effective,” says Haden.

Eight years before announcing his candidacy, just before his time in the Department of Agriculture, Haden had been considering running for a seat in the House of Representatives.

He was first elected in Nov. 2018 following his victory in the primary election in August of that same year. At the time, Missouri politics in most counties tended to lean Republican as they do today. However, Haden remembers a time when things were different.

“10 years before I ran, Steve Hobbs, I think, was the first Republican we had in a long time in the state Representatives,” says Haden. 

Hobbs was elected in 2002 and served District 21 for a full eight years. 

“Up until that time, this district had been very Democrat,” says Haden. “In the last 15 years it has changed from strongly democratic to republican and that is a statewide phenomenon; our state of Missouri had always been described as ‘blue’.”

He attributes this shift in politics to his first win by such a wide margin. In the 2018 general election, Haden beat his democratic opponent Jamie Blair with 72.6% of the votes in District 43.

“A lot of my constituents were democrats as they were growing up and now, those same people are very staunch conservatives,” observes Haden.

The reason for such a drastic change, Haden suggests, is due to political issues that we still see today including but not limited to welfare and abortion.

Haden’s Legislation

MFA was the largest agricultural cooperation in the state of Missouri and during his time as an executive there, Haden was involved in a lot of the inner workings of all aspects of agricultural production. 

As a result, he finds himself involved in many agricultural issues. 

“I have the greatest depth of historical lifetime understanding, particularly on any animal issue,” says Haden. “I am the only veterinarian in the House or Senate so particularly those issues I'm very invested in.”

Haden’s first passed bill was an agricultural facility inspection bill.

House Bill 574 made it illegal for any person, individual, corporation, association or government entity to inspect an agricultural facility. Only the Department of Agriculture and Department of Natural Resources, the county sheriff where the facility is located, and federal or state agencies with statutory or regulatory authority may conduct inspections.

“You could take down a multimillion dollar sow operation by bringing a disease in because somebody just popped in to look at your facility and not understand the biosecurity,” Haden explains.

Haden has served on the agriculture committee since he’s been in the House but other issues, such as healthcare inadequacies in his district, have come to light during his tenure.

As a resident of Audrain County, Haden experienced the effects from the closure of Mexico and Fulton’s hospitals firsthand. 

“I've had to develop some skill sets in the healthcare arena that, if it hadn’t been for the closing hospital, maybe I wouldn’t have done,” explains Haden

The House Healthcare Reform committee was formed two years ago and Haden was the first and current chairman. 

“Our healthcare in this country is in a really bad situation and for rural healthcare, it's dramatically worse,” adds Haden.

One bottleneck in our healthcare system that Haden exposed was the lack of residency spots available for postgraduate medical students. His first experience with this issue began when his son Tyler, a urologist, went through his residency.

“We didn’t have enough residency spots for Missouri graduates and because of the match system, if a resident goes somewhere to do their residency and it’s out of state, only a very small percentage will come back,” says Haden who describes the phenomena as a “brain drain”.

To address this, Haden sponsored House Bill 1162 establishing a grant program to fund 20 new residency spots.

Other states have implemented similar bills but what makes this one so effective was the short turn around between passing the bill and implementing it.

“We passed it in May and we already had positions available for them to apply for residencies in July of last year,” says Haden.

Haden’s fourth and final term 

State representatives are eligible for four, two year terms. This will be Haden’s last term and while he respects and understands term limits, he can’t help but feel in some cases, eight years just isn’t enough time in the House.

“The first two years you’re there, you’re just starting to learn where the bathrooms and the elevators are and that’s cynical but there’s some truth to it,” says Haden. 

One particular area Haden will focus on in his final term will be solar energy, specifically keeping assessments local and limiting solar to 2% of the available acreage in the county. 

“We need some legislation to protect rural areas or we’re going to be shafted on taxes,” says Haden. “The most pressing issue is to make sure they're locally assessed.”

This bill was introduced last year but never made it out of the committee. Now, with his recent reelection, Haden hopes to get it passed, perhaps with the help of some Senate support and minimal additions to the current legislation. 

“Trying to keep it clean will be difficult but we’re working with several legislators in rural areas,” says Haden.

Alternative energy such as wind and solar is a hot button issue on a large scale. It not only impacts rural communities financially but it can be a social issue. For one thing, in the midst of a housing crisis, land available for development is being used for these solar and wind farms which can also decrease the total potential profit.

“These are areas in Mexico we can use as housing developments,” Haden reminds. “Also, if they cut diagonally across your 40 acres, your development ability on either side has really diminished the price because they only pay you where they went through.”

The money that farmers who use or lease their land for agriculture spend regularly is supporting their rural community by putting money back into it through purchasing equipment, seeds, fertilizer and other necessities for years to come. However, after selling to solar and wind companies that revenue is effectively lost. 

“Now I’ll be very clear, the farmers leasing their land to solar, they have every right to do it; it’s their land but we also have to think, what does it do to a neighbor who doesn’t get anything for it,” says Haden. 

Another thing Haden has to consider for his constituents, in addition to their property values, would be the long term effects of such programs.

“What do you do with solar panels in 30 years, because that is their life, and we don’t have a good answer,” says Haden. “They’ve got toxic elements in them; they’re considered hazardous waste.”

Two years can go by in the blink of an eye but he will continue to fight for his constituents just as hard as he will listen to their concerns. 

“Having been raised here and knowing a lot of people, I hope they feel I’m available and they should,” assures Haden 

The work is far from over but even after his time is done as a State Representative, Haden will still be a district 43 resident. He encourages his constituents to be involved in government as much as they can be.

“Know who your representatives are,” Haden encourages. Make sure you have a personal relationship with that representative; come down to Jefferson City and work on things that are important to you. The representatives are hungry for information.”


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