Executive Insider: Lincoln Hough

Whether it’s analyzing state budget documents in Jefferson City or baling hay on his farm in Fair Grove, state Sen. Lincoln Hough, R-Springfield, is hardly afraid of a little – or a lot of – hard work.

He’s amassed a 15-year career in politics and roughly 30 years with farming as a part of his life. They’re two worlds he’s equally comfortable navigating.

“I’m a hard worker,” he says. “That’s what built the farms, and that’s what got me here.”

The current “here” for Hough is a first-generation cattle farmer and seventh-generation Greene County resident who in 2026 will enter his last year representing Springfield’s District 30 after completing his second and final term in the state Senate. He was unsuccessful last year in a race for lieutenant governor.

Hough first was elected to the Missouri House in 2010 and became a senator in 2018 after a stint on the Greene County Commission. In 2023, he was named chair of the Missouri Senate Appropriations Committee, which helps to write the state budget.

Hough didn’t come from a family of farmers or politicians. He said he took to farming in the seventh grade after borrowing money from his parents to buy his first three cows. He was inspired by his dad, David, longtime dean of Missouri State University’s College of Education, who used to buy a few steers in the spring, graze them during the summer, then sell them in the fall.

“I like being my own boss, and I like doing things when you want to do it, how you want to do it, and there’s a lot of flexibility in doing this,” he says, looking out on a portion of the 160-acre farm in Fair Grove he purchased in 2012. It’s part of close to 2,000 acres he either owns or leases in Greene County, where he raises several hundred head of cattle.

“It’s what gave me the opportunity to get into politics because I didn’t have a 9 to 5,” Hough says.

With political science and English degrees from Missouri State University, Hough says he took the Law School Admission Test but ultimately decided to stick with farming. At that time, he owned around 100 cows.

“I didn’t own any ground at the time, but I kind of looked around,” he says. “I’d have to sell everything that I’ve built to then go to school. I’m sure it would’ve been a perfectly fine life, but I feel pretty fortunate that this is where I landed.”

In grade school and middle school, Hough says he was on student council, which evolved into being on an agriculture advisory board with the Missouri Farm Bureau when at MSU. Community involvement was a part of the upbringing for Hough and his three siblings.

“It’s one of those things that I think my parents just taught us along the way that if you’re going to be on this Earth, you might as well make the most of it, and you might as well try to leave it better than when you got here,” Hough says.

Hough says a little-known fact is his first foray into politics was a loss. He unsuccessfully ran against Roseann Bentley for a seat on the Greene County Commission. A couple years later, he recounts, Bob Dixon reached out as he was term-limited in the House and told Hough he should run for his seat. In the primary election, Hough defeated Robert Cirtin, who he would later work with on the county commission.

“It’s kind of like the farm,” Hough says. “You just grind it out.”

After serving three terms in the House, Hough decided against seeking a fourth as he wanted to spend more time with his family. After he was elected to the Greene County Commission in 2016, people began asking him about running for the state Senate.

“I wasn’t really planning on going back to Jeff City, but kind of like whenever I first ran for the House, I sort of got drafted,” he says.

In his first Senate session, he focused on education through sponsoring Senate Bill 68, which authorized $10 million for then-Gov. Mike Parson’s Fast Track workforce incentive program and helped to secure a $10 million increase to Missouri State University’s core funding. Education has long been a priority in his political career, Hough says.

“I’ve been told repeatedly – even last year I was told – you can’t fully fund the foundation formula,” he says. “My response to people is budgets are about priorities. And my priority has always been the future of this state and our next generation. And I think investing in education is by far the best way to support that next generation.”

Hough says he always tells people that the priorities of the community are his priorities. That means meeting with schools, businesses, chambers of commerce and health care systems to ask about their needs.

“That’s how I see the job,” he says. “I think if you’re in it for yourself, you’re doing it for the wrong reason.”

As president at MSU from 2011-2024, Clif Smart’s leadership role overlapped a lot of Hough’s time in Jefferson City.

“One of the great things about Lincoln is he knows the influence you have if you are on the budget committee in the House and the appropriations committee in the Senate,” he says, noting Hough’s time serving on the two committees spans most of his political career. “It’s more influencing than just deciding where the money goes. It gives you leverage on all sorts of other decisions that are being made.”

Smart says Hough has been tremendously important to the funding of key projects in southwest Missouri, be that funding aid for MSU’s science building renovation, workforce development projects for Ozarks Technical Community College or getting money committed to Interstate 44 improvements.

“Lincoln’s heart is about making Springfield better and bringing money home for important projects,” Smart says. “I’ve never seen anyone better than Sen. Hough at getting his priorities and his vision of the budget, not only through his committee, but through the Senate, and then 90% of it being accepted by the House and then onto the governor.”

Brian Fogle, who retired as executive director of nonprofit Community Foundation of the Ozarks Inc. in 2024, says he’s known Hough for over 20 years. He says the senator over the years would reach out to him to gauge his opinion on various issues, such as those impacting rural areas. As a rancher in Fair Grove, Hough is sensitive to making sure rural areas aren’t ignored, which Fogle says he appreciated since that has always been important to CFO.

“What I appreciate about so much about Lincoln, especially in this day and age of when everything’s so polarized, is he always looks at what’s best for his constituents,” Fogle says, adding that includes things to improve quality of life, such as economic vitality and education. “I look at his ability to reach across the aisle and help solve problems when maybe that was not the doctrine of any of his party, but he was always courageous and willing to do that.”

Hough says he hopes people not just from Springfield but from across the state who have watched his career believe he got into politics for the right reasons. He says former U.S. Sen. Roy Blunt and former Gov. Kit Bond, whose funeral Hough attended earlier this year, are among those who’ve been influential on his career. He noted they and Bentley, who died in July, were people who “put their community first.”

“You got to put the work in, and I mean, last summer being what it was, sometimes you can put the work in, and it doesn’t actually work out,” he says, referring to his unsuccessful bid for lieutenant governor. “I’m happy with the race that we ran. I’m happy with the support that we had all over the state.”

Still, Hough says wins and losses are not the things that define you.

“The work that you do along the way is what you want to be left with,” he says.

At the farm, Hough is amid calving season with his cattle, a window he says runs around 60-70 days. His day-to-day right now is starting work around 5 a.m. and checking on all the calving herds before the heat rises much.

“We bale about 2,000 round bales a year, so that takes a little bit of time,” he says, adding that’s followed by hauling the hay and scattering it all over the countryside – something he affectionally calls “the most mind-numbingly boring task on the planet.”

“You could work all day every day,” he says. “That’s just the nature of the job. I mean, there’s always a fence to go fix. There’s always a tractor to work on.”

A father to William, 11, and Sam, 7, Hough’s sons already are helping on the farm. A second generation of farmers in the family may only be a few years away.

As for life beyond the farm, Hough says he’s not ready to tackle that.

“I don’t know where we go from here,” he says. “I’m 43. I’m not quite dead yet, so we’ll see what happens.”