Sen. Brasch returns to Lincoln to work and serve

Above: Sen. Lydia Brasch brought her family to the Capitol Building for her first day as a state senator.

As a young girl growing up in Lincoln’s North Bottoms neighborhood, Bancroft Sen. Lydia Brasch spent many afternoons taking tours of the State Capitol Building.

One feature of the building she always cherished was the Elizabeth Dolan mural, “The Spirit of the Prairie.”

“I remember that strong woman standing there, looking out over the prairie like there was no obstacle out there that was too large to overcome,” Brasch said.

That same spirit brought her parents, Elia and Olga Scherbak, to Nebraska from Ukraine in 1950. The couple had been sent to a forced labor camp in Germany, where Brasch’s two older brothers were born, before being sponsored by a Nebraska church to come to America.

“They started with nothing,” she said, adding that both attended a grade school at night to learn English. “They worked blue collar jobs and really embodied the American dream.”

Brasch graduated from Lincoln High and worked for the state of Nebraska until 1991, earning her bachelor’s degree from UNL by attending evening classes.

She said Lincoln Sen. Bill Avery, then a political science professor, was one of her favorite teachers.

“He was also one of the toughest professors I had,” she laughed. “His tests took three times longer to finish than anyone else’s.”

After completing her degree, Brasch became marketing director for the Nebraska State Fair and life took an interesting turn.

“I listened to farmers talk about the agricultural life, and I fell in love with farm people and their stories,” she said. “And then I fell in love with a farmer.”

Brasch married husband Lee in 1993 and now lives on a farm near Bancroft.

“I grew up on concrete,” she said. “I didn’t imagine that I’d be so blessed as to end up living on a farm.”

But Brasch says she loves the peace of country life.

“We live in a 100-year-old house with a grove of trees behind it and when the wind blows through them it sounds like the ocean,” she said. “I used to tell my mother that it’s like living in a park.”

The farm, centrally located in Brasch’s district about nine miles from the main streets of Bancroft, Pender, Beemer and West Point, offers daily challenges and surprises, she said.

In addition to farming with her husband of nearly 17 years, Brasch sells education software from her home.

Brasch said that a sense of patriotism and responsibility led her to say yes when asked to run for a seat in the Legislature, in part because of the opportunities that Nebraska provided for her immigrant family.

“It was not on my bucket list,” she said, referring to a list of things to do before one dies. But being an advocate for the people of her district was an opportunity that she couldn’t pass up, Brasch said.

Her daughter Alyssa and three grandchildren came to Lincoln to watch Brasch be sworn in as a senator. The family stayed in a hotel near the Capitol Building, which was pointed out to the young granddaughter through a window.

“That’s where Grandma is going to work,” Brasch’s daughter explained.
The response?

“Grandma’s working in a castle?!”

While it may not be a castle, Brasch agreed that her parents – both deceased – would be proud of their daughter’s success and her new role in public service.

“So proud,” she said. “I get teary-eyed just thinking about it.”