Helen Fancher (Republican) represented [the 7th] district comprising Ferry, Stevens, Pend Oreille, Lincoln, and parts of Spokane and Okanogan Counties in the House of Representatives. First elected in 1976, she served three terms.

Born 1931, in Seattle, Fancher was a pianist at an early age and played with the Seattle Youth Symphony at eleven, and the Seattle Philharmonic and the Seattle Symphony at sixteen. She attended the University of Washington, and Eastern Washington State College.

Born to a Republican family, raised as an active Republican, and married to an active Republican, Fancher ... served as the President of the Cattlemen's Auxilliary, and volunteered her time as an officer in the Cattlemen's legislative and education committees. When her district could not offer a suitable candidate to run for a House vacancy, Fancher realized she had the interest and decided to do it.

Campaigning in a district of 12,000 square miles, she doorbelled from ranch to ranch, climbed on tractors, and marched through barns and fields to go where she needed to go, ultimately succeeding.

In the Legislature Representative Fancher succeeded in becoming Assistant Majority Leader and served on the powerful Rules Committee. She and her husband, Jick, have three grown children.

--Political Pioneers, The Women Lawmakers