Above: Sen. Rich Pahls delights in spending time with grandsons Parker (left) and Garrett.<\/i>”<\/p>\n
When Omaha Sen. Rich Pahls left the Legislature in 2013, he gave away many of his things \u2014 information packets, personal effects.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought I was finished,\u201d Pahls said of being term limited eight years ago.<\/p>\n
His new office is a little bare, but ready to be filled as Pahls begins his third term at the Capitol.<\/p>\n
In January, he stepped down from a seat on the Omaha City Council where he focused on \u201cthe gut-level work: potholes, street repair, trash.\u201d<\/p>\n
Debate on the council was limited, and Pahls said he wanted to get back to Lincoln where he and 48 colleagues could discuss issues at length.<\/p>\n
Pahls grew up in Downs, Kansas \u2014 a small town about two hours south of Grand Island. He idolized teachers, planting a seed that eventually germinated in a long career in education. Pahls earned a master\u2019s degree at Fort Hayes State, then took a teaching job in Atkinson, Nebraska in 1968.<\/p>\n
He later earned a PhD in education from the University of Nebraska Omaha and spent 32 years as a teacher and administrator in the Millard School District.<\/p>\n
Pahls\u2019 early work life wasn\u2019t confined to education. In fourth grade he took a job as a shoe shiner at a barber shop in Downs. On Saturday nights, people would sit in rocking chairs, get their hair cut and talk politics.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t understand it all, but I learned a lot,\u201d Pahls said.<\/p>\n
Harm Voss, Downs\u2019 representative in the Kansas Legislature, was one of his clients.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was always impressed with him because he was a spiffy dresser and he always tipped me,\u201d Pahls said. \u201cHe treated me with respect even though I was a kid from the other side of the tracks.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was Voss who first told a young Pahls that he could become a state senator. While that prediction eventually came true, Pahls\u2019 next job was at the town\u2019s grocery store, where he worked for eight years.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I was in fifth grade, I had to file income tax,\u201d Pahls said. \u201cI made so much money \u2026 at 50 cents an hour.\u201d<\/p>\n
As he begins settling into his new space, it is unlikely to look like the office he had while a school principal. He often had a collection of exotic animals \u2014 macaws, a pot-bellied pig, tarantulas, snakes, iguanas \u2014 that students could see up close.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had an African Pixie Frog the size of a dinner plate,\u201d Pahls said. \u201cI got animals that I thought would be very intriguing to kids.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When Omaha Sen. Rich Pahls left the Legislature in 2013, he gave away many of his things \u2014 information packets, personal effects.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought I was finished,\u201d Pahls said of being term limited eight years ago. <\/p>\n
His new office is a little bare, but ready to be filled as Pahls begins his third term at the Capitol. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29206,"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":[124],"class_list":["post-29256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-senator-features","tag-sen-rich-pahls"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/MeetPahls_blog.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29256","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=29256"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29256\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29258,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29256\/revisions\/29258"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/29206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}