To ask who Eric Myricks is, is to understand something about the kind of leadership Idaho needs at this moment in its history. Idaho stands at a crossroads where rapid growth meets the fragile realities of rural communities, where aging families seek support, where young people search for opportunity, and where politics often drift far from the daily lives of the people they are meant to serve. In
such a moment, the state does not need another caretaker of the status quo. It needs a leader formed by real experience, deep empathy, creative discipline, and a belief in the dignity of every person who calls this place home. Eric’s story begins far from Idaho, in Cleveland, Ohio, where he grew up in a working family shaped by service and scholarship. His mother devoted her career to Children and Family Services, supporting vulnerable families across the city. His father taught high school chemistry, a steady and principled presence in the lives of countless students. Eric attended University School, an all-boys institution where he studied from kindergarten through twelfth grade, absorbing lessons in discipline, perseverance, and character. These values would follow him into every chapter that came next. Before he ever stepped into public life, Eric’s first calling was to ministry. As a youth pastor in the Mennonite Church, he learned how to listen with compassion, how to guide young people through moments of confusion and hope, and how to speak to the deeper questions that shape the human spirit. Leadership, he discovered, begins not with authority but with service. His voice, however, would carry him into a new realm. As Elijah Rock, Eric became a celebrated artist of jazz, theater, and the Great American Songbook—a canon that is, in many ways, a living testament to the American story itself. Few traditions capture the emotional history of this country more fully: its migrations and longings, its struggles and triumphs, its relentless pursuit of possibility. Performing this music is not simply entertainment; it is an act of cultural memory. Eric headlined historic theaters across the nation, including The Boston Paramount and the Cleveland Playhouse Theatre. He performed in more than fifty union theater productions, appearing in acclaimed stage works, television programs, and films. His artistry earned him an NAACP Theatre Award. He toured twenty-two countries and every state in America, bringing the stories embedded in American music to audiences around the world. Along the way, he collaborated with musicians and producers who had worked with legends such as Michael Jackson, Barbara Streisand, Kenny Rogers, Anita Baker, Tony Bennett, Whitney Houston, and many others. These experiences shaped not just his craft but his understanding of people. The stage taught him how to carry truth, how to connect across difference, and how to speak with a clarity that moves the heart. It also taught him humility. On stage, truth must resonate or it disappears. Politics rarely demands that kind of honesty, though it should. Life called Eric into a deeper purpose when his father was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. Rather than retreat from the pain, he stepped toward it. He and his wife Lesley founded The Elijah Rock Foundation Inc. to support caregivers, expand access to long-term care, and raise awareness about Alzheimer’s and related dementias. His commitment drew the attention of global leaders, and he was selected as an Atlantic Fellow for Equity in Brain Health at the Global Brain Health Institute (GBHI) at the University of California, San Francisco, funded by The Atlantic Philanthropies. Through this fellowship, Eric was mentored by Dr. Bruce Miller, Director of the UCSF Memory and Aging Center, and Dr. Charles Windon, neurologist and faculty at UCSF. Under their guidance, he deepened his understanding of neurodegenerative disease, public health inequities, and the complexities of caregiving across diverse communities. Post his fellowship, he received a pilot award from GBHI, the Alzheimer’s Association and the Alzheimer’s Society, ensuring that the voices of families and caregivers were not merely studied but honored. Together, they helped launch Memories Unleashed, a project that blended music, science, and personal narrative to illuminate how the arts can support brain health across the lifespan. In this work, Eric became a bridge between research and lived experience, between neurological science and the stories of ordinary people whose lives are reshaped by dementia. His path eventually led him west, to Idaho—the home state of his wife, who grew up in Idaho Falls. What began as a relocation became a calling. Running for Mayor of Nampa in 2025, he walked neighborhoods, knocked on doors, and sat in living rooms and driveways listening to the anxieties and aspirations of everyday Idahoans. Seniors who felt unseen in their caregiving struggles. Young families priced out of their own communities. Workers doing everything right yet still falling behind. What he discovered was simple and profound. Idahoans were not asking for theatrics or partisanship. They were asking to be heard. Those conversations reshaped him. They revealed how far government can drift from the realities of the people it serves. They reminded him that public office is not a platform but a trust. They called him toward a form of leadership grounded in humility, reverence, and deep responsibility, Leadership that sees every person and honors every story. This is why Eric Myricks is the right leader for Idaho’s future as Lt. He brings the communicator’s grace, trained in theaters where truth must land with precision. He brings the advocate’s resolve, formed through years of fighting for brain health equity and long-term care reform. He brings the organizer’s humility, molded by thousands of door-to-door conversations with Idahoans whose struggles never make headlines but define the fabric of this state. And he brings the thinker’s discipline, shaped through global work on how communities can thrive across the lifespan. Idaho does not need leaders who govern for the familiar few or speak only to the powerful. It needs leaders who understand community, who know how to unite people across divides, and who believe that courage and compassion must guide the next chapter of this state’s story. Eric’s vision is not ideological; it is deeply human. If Idaho chooses Eric Myricks, it chooses a leader who believes seniors deserve care, youth deserve opportunity, families deserve stability, and communities—rural and urban—deserve a government worthy of their trust. It chooses a public servant ready to help Idaho write a future as expansive as its sky and as steadfast as its people. And in the end, that is who Eric Myricks is: a servant shaped by experience, a voice shaped by story, and a leader shaped by the belief that every Idahoan deserves to be seen.
