Carlyle W. Begay

Carlyle W. Begay is an American politician. A member of the Republican Party. he represented the seventh district in the Arizona State Senate which is the largest Legislative State District in the Continental United States.

Begay is Navajo and was born on the Navajo Nation and he is T6’tsohnii (Big Water), born for Kinyaa’aanii (Towering House) clans. His maternal grandparents are Tl’izi /ani (Many Goats clan). His paternal grandparents are also of the Tl’izi lani (Many Goats clan). Begay is a lifetime resident of Arizona and grew up on the Navajo Nation near Black Mesa and was raised under the teachings of his ancestry, instilling in him the importance of remembering the story of his people and carrying it on to his descendants.

Begay graduated from the University of Arizona with an Associate of Science degree in Molecular and Cellular Biology and was a student in the Minority Medical Education Program at the University of Arizona College of Medicine. He also attended the Arizona International College’s Natural Sciences and Mathematics program in Tucson, Arizona; Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Winter Institute, in Baltimore, Maryland; and the Harvard School of Public Health’s Public Health Studies program in Boston, Massachusetts.

Begay succeeded Jack Jackson, Jr. in the Arizona State Senate in 2013 after Jackson’s resignation. On November 23, 2015, Begay announced that he switched from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party.