Louise Shadduck was an Idaho journalist, political activist, public servant, author, speaker and lobbyist.

Born on a dairy farm with six brothers, Louise quickly learned how to hold her own in a man's world. As a student, she wrote for her school's newspaper and was hired as a reporter for the Coeur d'Alene press shortly after graduation. The Coeur d'Alene Press sent Louise to report on the 1944 Republican National Convention, where she made many friends and personal contacts who helped her to found a Young Republicans organization in North Idaho. Soon, Louise left her post at the Press and was hired on by Idaho governor C.A. Robbins as his publicity assistant in 1949, and later administrative assistant.

Louise's political career took off once U.S. Senator Henry Dworshak convinced her to come to Washington, D.C. and work for him. In 1956 she ran for the U.S. Congress, against Democrat Gracie Pfost, and spoke for Eisenhower's peace time nuclear policy in a nationally televised speech at the Republican National Convention. Shortly after losing to Pfost, Idaho's Governor Smylie asked her to take over the struggling Department of Commerce and Development and her ten year tenure in the post coincides with Idaho's per capita imcome rising to its highest point in the century.

Later, Louise lobbied for Idaho's forest industries and rewrote the timber tax laws to make renewable logging on managed private land profitable. She also lobbied effectively for an amendment to malicious harassment laws after the arrival of a white supremacist group in Northern Idaho. In 1979 she accompanied Senator Frank Church and others on a major trade delegation to China where she spoke about and promoted cooperation in forestry between the two nations.

Louise was president of the Idaho Federation of Press Women, and from 1971 to 1973 was president of the National Federation of Press Women and spoke in Israel at the World Association of Women Journalists. She also wrote five books (Idaho Sheep King, Doctors with Buggies, Snowshoes and Planes, At the Edge of the Ice, Rodeo Idaho, and The House that Victor Built). Louise was also awarded an Honorary Doctor of Laws from the University of Idaho in 1969.