BOARD: Joel A. Beck

Joel A. Beck is a trial attorney and a partner and owner of Ruchti & Beck Law Offices in Pocatello. In August
2026, Governor Brad Little appointed him to the Idaho State Board of Education, where he represents Region 6
— southeast Idaho and Idaho State University — for a term expiring July 1, 2031.

A lifelong Idahoan, Beck grew up in Aberdeen and graduated from Aberdeen High School. He earned a bachelor’s degree in communication, with a minor in Spanish, from the University of Utah in 1998, followed by a law degree from the University of Idaho College of Law in 2002, where he served as an editor of the Idaho Law Review. He was admitted to the Idaho State Bar in 2002 and is also admitted to practice before the United States District Court for the District of Idaho.

Beck began his career at Hepworth, Lezamiz & Janis in Twin Falls, where he became a partner and spent seven years representing individuals and families. In 2009 he returned to southeast Idaho to start his current law firm Ruchti & Beck Law Offices, where he is a founding partner and owner with James Ruchti. His practice is devoted to civil litigation. He is fluent in Spanish.

Public service, much of it in education, has run alongside his practice. In 2017 he was elected a trustee of American Falls School District #381, where he took part in budget, levy and bond decisions and served through the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2018 he was also appointed a commissioner of the Magistrate Commission for Idaho’s Sixth Judicial District, the body that selects the region’s magistrate judges.

Earlier, Beck served on the board of directors of the Community Council of Idaho, the largest nonprofit organization serving Idaho’s Latino population. As a board member, he oversaw the organizations statewide programs on behalf of migrant and seasonal farmworkers and low-income families: Migrant and Seasonal Head Start, delivered through bilingual early-childhood centers across southern Idaho; community health clinics; affordable housing; and an employment and training division offering career counseling, occupational skills and on-the-job training, and a High School Equivalency Program for adults working toward a GED.

Beck currently serves on the board of directors of Friends of the Children – Eastern Idaho, the first and only Idaho chapter of the national organization, which pairs children facing the greatest obstacles with paid professional mentors from as early as age four through high school graduation — twelve or more years, no matter what. He also serves on the board of the Idaho Trial Lawyers Association and belongs to the Theron Ward Chapter of the American Inns of Court and the Sixth Judicial District Bar Association.

Beck and his wife, Ann, a native of Pingree, met as high school sweethearts and make their home in American Falls. They enjoy traveling and the outdoors, especially fly fishing. They are the parents of four children, all of whom were educated in Idaho public schools and three attended Idaho State University and one attended BYU Idaho — a family experience that shaped his view of the state’s education system as one continuum running from kindergarten through college.