{"id":9442,"date":"2013-03-08T14:24:02","date_gmt":"2013-03-08T20:24:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=9442"},"modified":"2017-04-06T13:08:18","modified_gmt":"2017-04-06T19:08:18","slug":"life-of-public-service-culminates-at-the-capitol","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=9442","title":{"rendered":"Life of public service culminates at the Capitol"},"content":{"rendered":"

Above: Sen. Jim Scheer and wife Kris welcome their son John’s twin daughters, Sloan and Delani.<\/em><\/p>\n

Sen. Jim Scheer has called Norfolk home for all but a few years of his life, and public service has been a nearly constant part of that life.<\/p>\n

Calling it his \u201clast gig,\u201d Scheer said the Legislature was the next logical step after serving over 30 years on local school boards, as mayor of Norfolk and most recently as a member of the State Board of Education.<\/p>\n

Scheer said he decided while serving on the state board that the Capitol was where he needed to be in order to have a real hand in shaping public policy.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo have a lasting, meaningful impact,\u201d Scheer said, \u201cthis is where you have to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

Scheer said the dynamic of the Unicameral is unique in his experience in public service.<\/p>\n

Most organizations \u2013 including school boards and even the state board of education \u2013 meet periodically, he said, which means that it takes time to cultivate connections with colleagues.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou develop relationships here much faster,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is probably the most enjoyable public service experience that I\u2019ve had.\u201d<\/p>\n

Scheer said finding work that you love was something he and his wife Kristi stressed to their children: Keeli, who lives in Omaha with her husband and is expecting her first child soon; Rachel, who teaches design part-time at UNL; and John who currently is juggling the demands of graduate school and twin daughters.<\/p>\n

\u201cI told them that if they hate going to work every day, their lives are going to be miserable,\u201d Scheer said, adding that he is fortunate enough to have been fulfilled by all of his roles in public service.<\/p>\n

Scheer said that he also received some good advice from his predecessor, Mike Flood, former speaker of the Legislature. Flood told him that if you disagree with your colleagues on one issue, it doesn\u2019t mean that you won\u2019t find common ground on the next issue, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cLegislating is an exercise in commonality,\u201d Scheer said. \u201cBut it\u2019s also a matter of tenacity\u201d \u2013 a trait that the senator recalled displaying early on.<\/p>\n

A talkative student, Scheer said his 4th grade teacher creatively attempted to quiet him.<\/p>\n

\u201cFirst she moved my desk to the back of the room away from the other kids,\u201d he said, \u201cthen closer and closer to the closet. And when I still insisted on talking to my classmates, she finally put my desk inside the closet and shut the door.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat just meant that I had to talk louder,\u201d he laughed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sen. Jim Scheer has called Norfolk home for all but a few years of his life, and public service has been a nearly constant part of that life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21356,"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":[71],"class_list":["post-9442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-senator-features","tag-sen-jim-scheer"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/MeetScheer_blog2017.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9442","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=9442"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9442\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21688,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9442\/revisions\/21688"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/21356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}