{"id":236,"date":"2009-02-27T23:57:00","date_gmt":"2009-02-28T05:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/linux\/wordpress\/?p=236"},"modified":"2017-04-06T13:36:05","modified_gmt":"2017-04-06T19:36:05","slug":"sen-coash-revs-up-for-the-unicameral","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=236","title":{"rendered":"Sen. Coash revs up for the Unicameral"},"content":{"rendered":"

Above: Sen. Coash and his wife Rhonda pause for a photo with his 1974 Corvette Stingray.<\/em><\/p>\n

This senator\u2019s early love of cars was the key to his first involvement with the Legislature. Thirteen-year-old Bassett native and future state Sen. Colby Coash took a job at a local restaurant.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe whole goal was to wash dishes to earn money for a car,\u201d Coash said. \u201cI was probably earning $3.50 an hour. It was a terrible job.\u201d<\/p>\n

His dream ran off-course, however, when his employer proposed cutting his hours in anticipation of a law before the Legislature that would limit the number of hours teens were allowed to work.<\/p>\n

Coash returned home and shared his woes with his father, who then facilitated what would be the future senator\u2019s first interaction with state government.<\/p>\n

\u201cRather than saying, \u2018Well that\u2019s just tough \u2014 that\u2019s the way it is,\u2019 he got on the phone with our state senator,\u201d Coash said. His father gave him the phone and instructed him to explain his situation.<\/p>\n

Subsequently, the bill threatening Coash\u2019s dream of purchasing a car failed to pass.<\/p>\n

Twenty years later, Coash is still involved in legislative issues and still appreciates his cars, which he drives to cars shows with his wife, Rhonda. He said his prized vehicle is the first classic car he purchased: a banana-yellow 1974 Corvette Stingray.<\/p>\n

Not all of Coash\u2019s interests are fueled with gasoline, however. The son of an agronomist, he enjoys planting and gardening \u2014 especially mint, which he uses in mint juleps served at his annual Kentucky Derby party. The gardener also enjoys heavy metal music.<\/p>\n

His passion for all things fast will come in handy as he juggles his role as a Nebraska state senator with his work for a disability services agency. While he said the work pulls him in many directions, both jobs share a commonality.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy life is not necessarily my own anymore. I share my time with my constituents and the state,\u201d Coash said. \u201cMy work was already in advocacy for people with disabilities, so in a lot of ways, my public service is just an extension of my work.\u201d<\/p>\n

The senator\u2019s life is about to shift into high gear, however, as he and his wife are expecting their first child.<\/p>\n

\u201cI found out that I was going to be a senator and a dad in the same couple of weeks. So it\u2019s been a big year for my wife and me,\u201d Coash said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This senator\u2019s early love of cars was the key to his first involvement with the Legislature. Thirteen-year-old Bassett native and future state Sen. Colby Coash took a job at a local restaurant.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21397,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_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}},"categories":[167,18],"tags":[216],"class_list":["post-236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-senator-features","tag-sen-coash-and"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/MeetCoash_blog2017.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236","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=236"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21718,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236\/revisions\/21718"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/21397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}