{"id":28873,"date":"2021-01-22T14:11:15","date_gmt":"2021-01-22T20:11:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=28873"},"modified":"2021-01-22T14:45:40","modified_gmt":"2021-01-22T20:45:40","slug":"aguilar-returns-for-second-act","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=28873","title":{"rendered":"Aguilar returns for second act"},"content":{"rendered":"

Above: Sen. Raymond Aguilar enjoys reading to his granddaughters Emmy (left) and Anna Lyn.<\/em><\/p>\n

During his farewell address to the Legislature in 2008, Sen. Raymond Aguilar of Grand Island said that he and his colleagues had worked to make Nebraska better. <\/p>\n

\u201cI’m sure in our own way we will all continue that work in another form,\u201d Aguilar said then. <\/p>\n

But even as he was saying those words, Aguilar now admits that he always had a desire to return and continue his work in the same form. <\/p>\n

\u201cI enjoyed my time here. I think I did some good. I wanted more of the same,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Aguilar was appointed in 1999, becoming the Legislature\u2019s first Latino member. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m very proud of that. Somebody had to step up and be first,\u201d he said. \u201cDiversity is very important. You\u2019re getting a different perspective you\u2019ve never had before, and that\u2019s what government should be about.\u201d<\/p>\n

Aguilar, who owned a lawn care and janitorial service before retiring, was elected in 2000 and 2004 before being term-limited out of office. During his first nine years in Lincoln, Aguilar introduced legislation that established a Child Advocacy Center in Grand Island, moved the state fair to his hometown and created drug courts. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I came down for [new senator] orientation, I visited the Supreme Court, and right off the bat they were talking about the success of the drug court and other problem-solving courts within the system. That made me feel pretty darn good,\u201d Aguilar said. \u201cA program I put together that many years ago is still moving \u2014 doing what we intended it to do, getting kids off of drugs.\u201d<\/p>\n

This year, he introduced legislation to help Grand Island. Specifically, he hopes to repeal a law in place since the 1800s that prohibits casinos from being located near a county or state fair.<\/p>\n

Aguilar\u2019s non-legislative schedule also is full. He and his wife, Susan, have nine children and a few dozen grandchildren and great grandchildren. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe do Christmas in shifts,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

For a while he tried his hand at acting. Aguilar loved being on stage \u2014 a Grand Island theater troupe\u2019s production of \u201cJoseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat\u201d was his first play \u2014 but his emerging second career hit a snag. <\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of productions were musicals, and I can\u2019t sing,\u201d Aguilar said. \u201cThe comedies, I loved that part.\u201d<\/p>\n

After leaving the Capitol in 2008, Aguilar worked at Grand Island High School for 10 years. While there, his desire for an encore was renewed. <\/p>\n

\u201cBeing at a school, you see things that need change,\u201d Aguilar said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

During his farewell address to the Legislature in 2008, Sen. Raymond Aguilar of Grand Island said that he and his colleagues had worked to make Nebraska better. <\/p>\n

\u201cI’m sure in our own way we will all continue that work in another form,\u201d Aguilar said then. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28869,"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":[263],"class_list":["post-28873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-senator-features","tag-sen-raymond-aguilar"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/MeetAguilar2021_blog.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28873","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=28873"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28873\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28879,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28873\/revisions\/28879"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/28869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}