{"id":30,"date":"2007-01-26T17:26:00","date_gmt":"2007-01-26T23:26:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/linux\/wordpress\/?p=30"},"modified":"2017-04-06T13:43:20","modified_gmt":"2017-04-06T19:43:20","slug":"carlson-trades-ball-fields-for-public-service","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=30","title":{"rendered":"Carlson trades ball fields for public service"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sen. Carlson and his wife Margo enjoy spending time with their twin grandchildren, Ian and Ava.<\/em><\/p>\n

Sen. Tom Carlson loves southern Baptist gospel music.<\/p>\n

His favorite group is the Signature Sound Quartet. He can remember singing with his mother as a child. She had him take piano lessons.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wish I\u2019d have continued that but, at the time, I was more concerned about when the lesson would be over so I could go play ball,\u201d he said, laughing.<\/p>\n

His love of sports continued throughout his childhood and into adulthood. As a professor at Taylor University in Indiana, Carlson also coached football and baseball. And even now, in the Legislature, Carlson said he still keeps a sportsman\u2019s mindset.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the Legislature, every day\u2019s a new ballgame and at the end of the day you hope the people of Nebraska are the winners,\u201d he said. \u201cYou can\u2019t predict what\u2019s going to happen on any given bill.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Legislature is a whole new ballgame for Carlson, who said he\u2019d never been to a committee hearing until this year\u2019s session started. His favorite part, Carlson said, is when meaningful debate leads to positive results.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhenever you feel like you\u2019ve had an influence on making something happen that\u2019s good for all Nebraskans, that\u2019s very satisfying,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Serving in the Legislature, Carlson said, has provided him a way to give back.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a way of repaying the people of Nebraska for being so good to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carlson grew up on a farm about 15 miles north of Holdrege.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had the privilege of growing up in a wonderful family,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

After high school, Carlson attended the University of Northern Colorado for both his bachelor\u2019s and master\u2019s degrees and then received his PhD in education from the University of Iowa. He is a financial advisor in Holdrege, where he served on the local school board for eight years.<\/p>\n

His education included an emphasis on statistics and research methods, which he said has served him well in the Legislature.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been helpful down here,\u201d Carlson said. \u201cI\u2019m kind of looked at as a numbers guy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carlson and Margo, his wife of 43 years, have three children: Chad, Erin and Nathan. Chad and his wife Amanda live in Des Moines where Chad is in sports medicine. Erin works at a Chicago law firm and Nathan lives and works in Holdrege. Margo was a speech pathologist for 40 years. She is now retired.<\/p>\n

The Carlsons very much enjoy spending time with their twin grandchildren, Ava and Ian. Although, the grandkids live in Des Moines, Carlson said they see them about once a month.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey love their grandma and grandpa,\u201d Carlson said.<\/p>\n

When he\u2019s not busy with the Legislature or his grandkids, Carlson and his wife enjoy attending Husker baseball and football games. They also spend time looking for antique dishes, which they collect.<\/p>\n

Carlson also loves playing golf.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou learn a lot about a person when you play golf with them,\u201d Carlson said. \u201cThe golf course equalizes everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sen. Tom Carlson loves southern Baptist gospel music.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21438,"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":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":[229],"class_list":["post-30","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-senator-features","tag-sen-carlson-and"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/MeetCarlson_blog2017.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30","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=30"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21740,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30\/revisions\/21740"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/21438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}