{"id":37983,"date":"2025-03-14T15:46:31","date_gmt":"2025-03-14T21:46:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=37983"},"modified":"2025-03-14T15:46:31","modified_gmt":"2025-03-14T21:46:31","slug":"juarez-finds-her-place-at-the-capitol","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=37983","title":{"rendered":"Juarez finds her place at the Capitol"},"content":{"rendered":"

Above: Sen. Margo Juarez (second from right) and fellow members of the Guadalupanas, a community service group affiliated with the church she grew up in.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Sometimes it takes coming back to where you started to find a way to make a difference. That was the case for Omaha Sen. Margo Juarez.<\/p>\n

The new senator grew up in Nebraska but left the state when her former husband\u2019s career took the family to Utah in 1991. Having spent her entire life in Omaha, Juarez was excited and ready for a new adventure.<\/p>\n

After retiring from positions in the federal government with the IRS and Social Security Administration, she moved back to Omaha. Once in Nebraska, her mother encouraged Juarez to move from her central Omaha townhome back to the old neighborhood.<\/p>\n

\u201cI told her, mom, I am not moving back to South Omaha,\u201d Juarez laughed. \u201cBut here I am. The joke is that it took me all those years to move \u2018out west\u2019 from growing up on 22nd St. to 52nd St. where I live now.\u201d<\/p>\n

As she settled into her new life, doors began to open. She was encouraged to apply for appointment to a vacant seat on the Omaha Public School Board in 2021. Juarez said she initially declined. She\u2019d never served in public office before and wasn’t sure that it would be the right fit.<\/p>\n

After giving it more thought, however, Juarez changed her mind. It turned out that she enjoyed serving so much that she ran for the school board seat the next year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI never planned to seek elected office at the state level,\u201d she said. \u201cBut my concern for public schools in our state pushed me to find a way to try and make a difference.\u201d<\/p>\n

That concern for her community also keeps Juarez busy working part-time at Mockingbird Hills Community Center and as a member of the South Omaha Neighborhood Alliance, as well as volunteering at her home parish of St. John\u2019s.<\/p>\n

She also kept busy helping to care for her mother, who lived with Juarez until just before her death in early February of this year at age 100.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt taught me a lot about the issues surrounding elder care and families who are struggling to care for their parents,\u201d Juarez said.<\/p>\n

Those concerns were part of what led her to run for the District 5 seat when it became open due to term limits.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m learning about a broad range of issues,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m trying not to be intimidated by the depth of the decisions that we\u2019re going to have to make and focus on making the best decisions for my constituents.\u201d<\/p>\n

Back in her formative years, Juarez was the Girls State representative for Omaha South High School and ran for the simulation\u2019s State Board of Education. She also served as a member of the student council in high school.<\/p>\n

\u201cI guess it\u2019s been in my blood for a while,\u201d she laughed. \u201cSometimes it just takes time to find your place.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sometimes it takes coming back to where you started to find a way to make a difference. That was the case for Omaha Sen. Margo Juarez.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38000,"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":[300],"class_list":["post-37983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-senator-features","tag-sen-margo-juarez"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Juarez_blog.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37983","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=37983"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37983\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37987,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37983\/revisions\/37987"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/38000"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}