Education Advocate: Beam Working to Spread Hillsdale’s K-12 Program
Written by Doug Goodnough
Growing up on a ranch in Grants, New Mexico, Tara Elkins Beam, ’10, ’16 M.A., was part of the 4-H and rodeo circuit, with her specialty being something called “goat-tying.”
“There’s a stake in the ground at the end of the arena and a rope tied to it with a goat at the end of it,” Beam explained. “You run your horse straight down the arena as fast as you can, and your horse keeps running. You just step off, and your horse runs by, and you run down the rope, you flank the goat, and you have a pigeon string in your mouth. You tie the goat, and it’s all supposed to happen in six or seven seconds.”
While her goat-tying days may be over, she is still wrangling for the cause of classical education, which started as a student at Hillsdale College. Beam learned about Hillsdale through her father, a conservative farmer, rancher, and owner of a trading post in Grants.
“We got online, and I read the mission statement,” Beam said. “And I felt the Holy Spirit jump, and I cried. I said, ‘OK, this is where we have to go. How do we pay for it?’ I got a scholarship, and we made it work.”
At first, she felt ill-prepared for Hillsdale’s academic rigor.
“As I went to Hillsdale, I realized my education was lacking,” Beam said. “I feel like I learned how to read, learned how to think. I worked hard. It was blood, sweat, and tears, and I felt grossly inadequate to be there.”
She quickly adapted, majoring in politics and minoring in economics and graduating in the top five percent of her class. Beam said she spent most of her spare time in the library.
“I was so in love with what I was studying that it was easy for me to study a lot,” Beam said. “My bottom might still be imprinted in a seat in the von Mises Room. I was quite studious.”
When she wasn’t studying, Beam got involved with intramural sports, Praxis political economy club, and swing dancing. She said taking Hillsdale President Larry Arnn’s Churchill capstone course was a highlight, as well as economics classes from Dr. Gary Wolfram. The “most strategic” class she had was auditing Dr. Dan Coupland’s children’s literature class.
“I got to read things that I should have read and didn’t read growing up,” she said. “That has been my springboard in terms of public speaking in the education realm.”
After interning with then-U.S. Senator Pete Domenici (R-New Mexico) through the Washington-Hillsdale Internship Program, Beam was ready to attend graduate school at Pepperdine University. Despite having a full scholarship and a plane ticket, she decided not to go.
“I just felt like I wasn’t supposed to go, but I had no idea why,” Beam said.
She returned to New Mexico and quickly got involved with the Barney Charter School Initiative in her home state. For two years, she helped draft the charter for the eventual launch of the Estancia Valley Classical Academy in Moriarity just east of Albuquerque. She also taught there for two years before returning to Hillsdale to complete her master’s degree in statesmanship. After graduating in 2016, she went back to the Land of Enchantment, met her husband, and started a family.
However, her passion for classical education still burned brightly. Living in Rio Rancho at the time, she was involved in a potential charter school start-up and began to do some public speaking about charter school initiatives.
When her husband, Jason, accepted a position working at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, the family moved to the remote mountainous city made famous for the development of the first atomic bomb, also known as The Manhattan Project.
Although now homeschooling her children, Beam is resolved to bring Hillsdale’s K-12 program to her new community.
“These scientists are some of the best minds in America and are all concentrated in this little town,” she said. “I have been praying for a business model, and also, what would be the structure that would serve the greatest number of families here?”
She has even asked: Can the Hillsdale curriculum be brought into a more user-friendly micro-school model that’s easily disseminated around the country, where it doesn’t have the major initiative of a state charter?
“I just want to know how to serve the communities that aren’t going to get a body charter school,” Beam said.
In the meantime, she enjoys being the mother of three young boys and playing the role of classical education advocate at every opportunity. Beam continues to do public speaking engagements. For next fall’s Constitution Day (on September 17), she and some friends have rented a local theater in town and plan on hosting a program for the community.
Her love of New Mexico, especially her new hometown of Los Alamos, remains.
“I’m thrilled about this place,” Beam said. “I love the mountains. I love the sunshine. The potential is endless.”
Doug Goodnough, ’90, is Hillsdale’s senior director of Alumni Marketing. He enjoys connecting with fellow alumni in new and wonderful ways.
Published in May 2025