{"id":16894,"date":"2015-03-20T16:02:46","date_gmt":"2015-03-20T22:02:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=16894"},"modified":"2017-04-06T13:47:40","modified_gmt":"2017-04-06T19:47:40","slug":"service-a-priority-for-senator","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=16894","title":{"rendered":"Service a priority for senator"},"content":{"rendered":"

Above: Sen. Patty Pansing Brooks enjoys playing guitar in her spare time.<\/em><\/p>\n

Receiving one\u2019s high school diploma is a momentous occasion, but for Sen. Patty Pansing Brooks, the event was even more memorable because the person presenting the certificate was her mother.<\/p>\n

Wanting to make a greater impact in the school district, Lu Pansing had earned a seat on the Lincoln Board of Education, Pansing Brooks said.<\/p>\n

One of her duties was to hand out diplomas.<\/p>\n

And one of those she impacted was her daughter.<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving your mom do that\u2014it was pretty significant to a high schooler,\u201d the senator said.<\/p>\n

Community service was normal behavior in her household, Pansing Brooks said: her mother served on the Lincoln Community Foundation and her father, Tom, served on the Lincoln City Council.<\/p>\n

Seeing her parents give back to the community instilled the same values in her, she said. The result is an extensive list of volunteer efforts, from serving on parent-teacher organizations to co-chairing the $6 million fundraising campaign for downtown Lincoln\u2019s new Union Plaza.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce you start participating in groups, then you see the joy in the giving yourself to help others,\u201d Pansing Brooks said. \u201cIt becomes addictive. I hope to make a difference in the lives of other people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Following the example set by her grandfather and father, she started a business in District 28, (a law firm with her husband, Loel, in 1986), and began volunteering as a way to meet people and give back to Lincoln. Being a state senator was not in her long-range plan, she said.<\/p>\n

But with the youngest of her three children leaving for college this year and years of wide-ranging community involvement under her belt, the time was right take her civic endeavors to the next level.<\/p>\n

Pansing Brooks said some of her goals as a new senator include learning the Unicameral system, advocating for those in her district who struggle with low incomes and making sure Nebraska\u2019s educational priorities survive a legislative session where property tax reductions have been suggested.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all have the same goals of helping Nebraska to thrive,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s just a matter of details on how to get there.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Receiving one\u2019s high school diploma is a momentous occasion, but for Sen. Patty Pansing Brooks, the event was even more memorable because the person presenting the certificate was her mother.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21317,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[167,18],"tags":[146],"class_list":["post-16894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-senator-features","tag-sen-patty-pansing-brooks"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/MeetPansingBrooks_blog2017.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16894"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16894\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21671,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16894\/revisions\/21671"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/21317"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}