{"id":21068,"date":"2017-03-10T14:01:50","date_gmt":"2017-03-10T20:01:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=21068"},"modified":"2017-03-10T14:02:50","modified_gmt":"2017-03-10T20:02:50","slug":"father-follows-sons-footsteps-to-capitol","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=21068","title":{"rendered":"Father follows son\u2019s footsteps to Capitol"},"content":{"rendered":"

Above: Sen. Erdman displays his catch of the day at Lake Minatare in western Nebraska.<\/em><\/p>\n

With the exception of his college years, Sen. Steve Erdman has lived in Morrill County his entire life. The new senator went so far as to move in with his grandparents at the age of 16, when his parents moved to Washington state, in order to stay in western Nebraska.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been a good fit.<\/p>\n

A life-long farmer, Erdman briefly thought he wanted to be an engineer and took the preparatory coursework while attending Nebraska Western Junior College.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen I realized that I\u2019d have to spend every day inside,\u201d he said. \u201cThat was the end of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Instead, with the help of an uncle, Erdman began a 42-year career working the land. At one point, all three of his and wife Cathy\u2019s sons also were involved in the operation. A significant drought in 2002 and low commodity prices in 2004 caused the two oldest sons to rethink their career paths, however \u2014 a choice the senator understood.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a hard life. It\u2019s very rewarding, but it\u2019s a hard life,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

To balance that life, Erdman became deeply involved in 4-H and FFA while his sons grew up. Craig, Philip and Nicholas all excelled in the programs, he said, and there was no shortage of pride in their achievements.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut, we didn\u2019t take time for vacations \u2014 family trips or that sort of thing \u2014 during those years,\u201d he said. \u201cYou can\u2019t really do that as a family farmer, but those programs taught our sons and many other young people that hard work and responsibility really pay off.\u201d<\/p>\n

Erdman\u2019s first foray into public service was inspired by his family. Concerned with the quality of his sons\u2019 education, he decided that it was time to \u201cput up, or shut up,\u201d so he ran for a seat on the board of their Class 1 school.<\/p>\n

Erdman later served on the Bayard School Board for 12 years, and that service led to 12 years on the Morrill County Board of Commissioners and many additional boards. The ability to see issues that needed addressed and tackle them head-on was what he liked best about being a county commissioner.<\/p>\n

The work of a state senator has proven challenging in that regard, Erdman said. He recalled the one piece of advice offered by his middle son, Philip, when the elder Erdman was considering running for a seat in the Unicameral.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe said, \u2018Don\u2019t do it!\u2019\u201d Erdman laughed, explaining that Philip \u2014 who served as a Nebraska state senator from 2001-09 \u2014 was concerned that his dad would find it difficult to adjust to the pace of the legislative process. \u201cHe thought it would aggravate me to stand around. He was right.\u201d<\/p>\n

The other challenge, he said, is reconciling the interests of the urban and rural parts of the state.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt goes both ways,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s difficult to understand the different priorities and to find common ground between what\u2019s good for your district and what\u2019s good for the entire state.\u201d<\/p>\n

Erdman spends as much time as possible with his nine grandchildren: four in Lincoln, four in Kearney and one in Gering.<\/p>\n

When asked if there is a politician that will serve as a role model for him while at the Legislature, Erdman answered immediately.<\/p>\n

\u201cYep \u2014 and his name is Philip,\u201d he said with obvious pride. \u201cThere isn\u2019t a day that goes by that someone doesn\u2019t come up to me and tell me that Philip helped them. He made a real difference and I\u2019d like to think that I could too.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With the exception of his college years, Sen. Steve Erdman has lived in Morrill County his entire life. The new senator went so far as to move in with his grandparents at the age of 16, when his parents moved to Washington state, in order to stay in western Nebraska.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21083,"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":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[18],"tags":[195],"class_list":["post-21068","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-senator-features","tag-sen-erdman-displays"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/MeetErdman_blog.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21068","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=21068"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21068\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21070,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21068\/revisions\/21070"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/21083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}