{"id":42,"date":"2005-01-26T18:35:00","date_gmt":"2005-01-27T00:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/linux\/wordpress\/?p=42"},"modified":"2017-04-06T13:44:59","modified_gmt":"2017-04-06T19:44:59","slug":"heidemann%e2%80%99s-path-to-legislature-paved-with-gold","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=42","title":{"rendered":"Heidemann\u2019s path to Legislature paved with gold"},"content":{"rendered":"

Above: Sen. Heidemann at Mount Iliamna, an active volcano in Johnson River, Alaska, near the Lake Clark National Park and Preserve.<\/em><\/p>\n

Sen. Lavon Heidemann proudly admits that he spent a great deal of his life as a gold digger. In 1978, two years out of high school, he began working for a company that was drilling for gold on his Elk Creek family farm. The company hired him full time in 1983.<\/p>\n

Soon after his hire, the drilling company announced it needed a crew foreman in Alaska \u2013 within 24 hours.<\/p>\n

\u201cHey, why not?\u201d was the senator\u2019s response.<\/p>\n

The next morning, Heidemann was on a plane to Sand Point, Alaska. After that, he split his time between drilling for gold in Alaska and coming home to work on the farm in Elk Creek.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople started to say I had wanderlust,\u201d he said. \u201cIt just gets into your blood, I guess. Some days were boring, but other days were really an adventure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Drilling next to an active volcano often made the work more exciting, he said. When it occasionally erupted, the crew took cover behind the drill to dodge pieces of flying rock.<\/p>\n

Heidemann left the drilling operation in 1995 to work full time for his family farming operation.<\/p>\n

Before he ever considered running for office, Heidemann was interested in the differences of opinions brought out by political issues. He was inspired to run for office when he became frustrated by issues that were important to him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI finally realized that complaining to myself about it wasn\u2019t doing any good,\u201d he said. \u201cI figured I should probably do something about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The idea was immediately backed by his wife, Robin. The senator says he couldn\u2019t have won without her.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe helped with 14 parades, five or six county fairs,\u201d he said. \u201cWe gave out 12,000 pens for the campaign and stayed up all night beforehand making lollipops to give away. We must have made 5,000 of them.\u201d<\/p>\n

The fact that he was becoming a senator didn\u2019t sink in for Heidemann until just before session began.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we first walked into the Warner Chamber, it first hit me\u2014the bigness of it all,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The unexpected departure of Gov. Mike Johanns shortly after the 2004 election created confusion for some Heidemann supporters. When the media announced that then-Lt. Gov. Dave Heineman would become governor, Heidemann\u2019s office received several calls from constituents who wondered why the newly elected senator was leaving to become governor even before taking office.<\/p>\n

\u201cI guess the names are pretty similar,\u201d he joked.<\/p>\n

His first impressions of the job?<\/p>\n

\u201cI never realized how much opportunity there would be to help people in the district,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome things are really small, but they can really help someone out.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not all just about lawmaking,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s about helping people and staying in touch.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sen. Lavon Heidemann proudly admits that he spent a great deal of his life as a gold digger. In 1978, two years out of high school, he began working for a company that was drilling for gold on his Elk Creek family farm. The company hired him full time in 1983.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21452,"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":[234],"class_list":["post-42","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-senator-features","tag-sen-heidemann-at"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/MeetHeidemann_blog2017.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42","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=42"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21748,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42\/revisions\/21748"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/21452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}