{"id":24620,"date":"2019-01-25T18:36:59","date_gmt":"2019-01-26T00:36:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=24620"},"modified":"2019-01-25T19:02:13","modified_gmt":"2019-01-26T01:02:13","slug":"moser-strikes-the-right-note-at-the-capitol","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=24620","title":{"rendered":"Moser strikes the right note at the Capitol"},"content":{"rendered":"

Above: Sen. Mike Moser with his wife Jan in their Columbus music store.<\/em><\/p>\n

Sometimes it can get a little loud at Sen. Mike Moser\u2019s place of business, but that\u2019s part of the deal. Moser, the former mayor of Columbus, has owned Columbus Music Company with his wife, Jan, for the past 42 years. The store has around 150 guitars in stock, and plenty of amps to go with them.<\/p>\n

Moser always had a love of music, and still does, and was happy to leave his job selling appliances to take over the music store.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe opportunity to call my own shots and run my own organization was too tempting to pass up,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He had the drive and a plan, but what he didn\u2019t have in 1977 was cash. The previous owner of the store was ready to retire, and knowing that such an opportunity may not come around again, the Mosers decided to sell their home and move into an apartment.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019d just built a house, and we needed the equity to get the business loan,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

It was a gamble well worth taking. The store is still going strong four decades later, even in an era when online purchases have challenged many brick-and-mortar retailers.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of people buying a guitar like to have it in their hands,\u201d Moser said.<\/p>\n

So, too, does Moser. His favorite is a 1982 Fender Stratocaster that he uses on stage with Cruisin\u2019\u2014a four-piece band that plays about a half-dozen gigs a year. They cover Elvis, the Everly Brothers, some older country and a variety of other music.<\/p>\n

\u201cI like songs with harmony and pleasant lyrics,\u201d Moser said. \u201cI like the variety of being able to play different genres.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moser addressed a variety of infrastructure issues during his 12 years as Columbus\u2019 mayor. During his administration, the city built one viaduct and approved construction of a second over a mainline railroad track, expanded the water treatment plant and completed an arterial street on the city\u2019s north side.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe tackled a lot of long-festering problems,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s hoping to bring that problem-solving ability to the Capitol.<\/p>\n

Moser succeeds Sen. Paul Schumacher, who served District 22 for the past eight years. Schumacher supported Moser\u2019s candidacy, but their relationship predates politics. The two were on the debate team at Platte Junior College, now Central Community College, in Columbus and were part of a four-person squad that competed around the Midwest.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019d be gone 15 weekends a year. It was a lot of fun,\u201d Moser said.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a skillset that no doubt will serve the new senator well, but on one issue there\u2019s no debating Moser: anyone, regardless of talent and experience, can pick up a guitar.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think anybody can play well enough to have fun,\u201d Moser said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sometimes it can get a little loud at Sen. Mike Moser\u2019s place of business, but that\u2019s part of the deal. Moser, the former mayor of Columbus, has owned Columbus Music Company with his wife, Jan, for the past 42 years. The store has around 150 guitars in stock, and plenty of amps to go with them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24619,"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_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_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":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18],"tags":[254],"class_list":["post-24620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-senator-features","tag-sen-mike-moser"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/MeetMoser_blog.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24620","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=24620"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24620\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24626,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24620\/revisions\/24626"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}