Her family moved west to Los Angeles when Helen was a year old, then north to southern Oregon when she was 12, to run a dairy farm near Grants Pass.

A musician, horse enthusiast, and athlete, she attended Whitworth College in Spokane, Washington on music scholarship (double bass), where she met Nick Chenoweth while working in a cafeteria; she was a waitress and he was a cook.

Later, Helen developed and managed the Northside Medical Clinic, where she initiated a physician recruitment practice for under-served rural communities, while Nick attended the UI law school in Moscow.

Later she went on to serve as then-Congressman Steve Symms' District Director in 1977 through his re-election in 1978,[2] then started her own business, Consulting Associates, and became a noteworthy lobbyist in Idaho's capital city.

She defeated two-term Democratic incumbent Larry LaRocco by almost 11 points in the Republican wave that saw that party take control of the House for the first time in 40 years.

[5] During her tenure, she was referred to by her most outspoken critics as a "poster-child for the militias," and in February 1995 she voiced the suspicion that armed federal agents were landing black helicopters on Idaho ranchers' property to enforce the Endangered Species Act, in line with a longstanding conspiracy theory.

"[7] Chenoweth faced a strong challenge in 1996 from Democratic activist Dan Williams, but was reelected in a close contest—most likely helped by Bob Dole easily carrying the district in the presidential election.

In November 1997, Chenoweth was one of eighteen Republicans in the House to co-sponsor a resolution by Bob Barr that sought to launch an impeachment inquiry into President Bill Clinton.

[11] She was a critic of President Clinton during the Clinton–Lewinsky scandal and was one of the first to call for his resignation over the affair, although she admitted that she had carried on a six-year illicit romance with married rancher Vernon Ravenscroft when she worked for his natural-resources consulting firm during the 1980s.

After leaving Congress, she moved to Hage's Nevada ranch, where the two continued to write and speak on private property rights issues.

In 2003 at the Boise Airport she was selected by the Transportation Security Administration for a hand search before they would permit her to board a plane for her Nevada home.

"[23] On October 2, 2006, Chenoweth-Hage was killed after being thrown from the passenger seat of a sport utility vehicle that overturned on an isolated highway in central Nevada, near Tonopah.