While Tim Walz established himself as a national political figure in Minnesota, the Democratic vice presidential candidate’s life story is deeply rooted in Nebraska.
The 60-year-old Walz was born in West Point and spent his life through adulthood in Nebraska.
He graduated from tiny Butte High School.
He served in the Nebraska Army National Guard for over a decade.
He earned a degree from Chadron State College.
He and his wife also taught school in Alliance before they moved to her native state of Minnesota in 1996.
“We got a great base for future success,†Walz once said of his days at Chadron State. “I believe the record shows that we have been able to go on and compete very well.â€
Now after Tuesday's announcement that Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris picked him as her running mate, Walz will compete this fall for a chance to join her in the White House.
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Walz, a former U.S. House member and now Minnesota's governor, touted his small-town roots and the values he said he learned in Nebraska during an introductory video released by the newly minted Harris-Walz campaign Tuesday.
"I learned to be generous toward my neighbors, compromise without compromising my values, and to work for the common good," he said. "And I tried to teach my students what small town Nebraska taught me: respect, compromise, and service to country."
Nebraskans who knew Walz were abuzz with Harris' pick after the news broke Tuesday morning.
Aubrianna Faustman of Lincoln said she could not be more excited to learn that her high school geography teacher with whom she twice traveled to China on school trips was joining the Democratic presidential ticket.
“He’s just a down-to-earth, good guy,†she said. “He was a great teacher who knows how to make learning exciting. I feel like he is really someone who can bring people together.â€
Allen Shepherd, a longtime Chadron State professor who taught Walz history at the college, remembered Walz as a talented and curious student with a lot of interests beyond the classroom.
"I suppose if I could use four adjectives to describe him, it would be honest, fair, talented and moderate in politics," he said.
Con Marshall, the longtime spokesman for Chadron State, recalled that Walz was personable and engaging when he spoke at the school’s commencement a decade ago.
“He didn’t use a single note and walked around the stage talking with a microphone on,†he said. “He is very fluent and very sharp.â€
Born in West Point
Walz has actually spent more of his 60 years in Nebraska than he has in Minnesota.
Walz was born on April 6, 1964, in West Point, the son of Jim and Darlene Walz. His late father was a school superintendent. Tim Walz spent most of his childhood in Valentine before his family moved to Butte for his sophomore year of high school.
He graduated from Butte High School in 1982. He likes to say there were 24 people in his class, and he was related to half of them.
Walz’s mother still lives in Butte, a village near the South Dakota border in northeast Nebraska, and he has a sister living in Alliance.
His mother could not be reached Tuesday. His sister, Sandy Dietrich, declined to comment when reached by the World-Herald Tuesday morning, saying she had only learned of Harris' choice five minutes earlier. Walz's brother, Jeff, lives in Florida.
Even before completing high school, just two days after turning 17, Tim Walz got his family’s permission to enlist in the Nebraska Army National Guard. He has said he was encouraged to serve by his father, a Korean War-era Army veteran.
He once recalled to Minnesota Public Radio that he and a military recruiter drove 30 miles to a field where a farmer was out tilling. The farmer, a lieutenant in the Guard, hopped down from a tractor.
"And we did the oath of enlistment right there on the edge of a field with the recruiter, and that led me on a 24-year journey," Walz recounted.
He said he relished being a "citizen soldier, doing it and being part of the people that you defend."
He completed his basic training at Georgia's Fort Benning in the summer before his senior year at Butte. Guard records show he served in the infantry and was promoted to sergeant in 1987.
In 1989, he was honored as the Nebraska Guard's Citizen-Soldier of the Year, according to a Stars and Stripes report, citing a Walz gubernatorial biography.
After high school, Walz enrolled at Chadron State and used the GI Bill to complete his degree in 1989. For a time in 1985, he also took classes in East Asia Studies at the University of Houston.
After graduating from Chadron, he briefly served full time in the Guard at the armory in Alliance.
Shepherd, the Chadron State professor, recalled a conversation around the time Walz graduated when the young man was pondering what to do with his life. Shepherd said he suggested he "do something that will really shape your life."
In 1990, Walz flew off to China to spend a year teaching as part of Harvard University’s WorldTeach program. He taught American history, culture and English to Chinese high school students.
Walz called it a once-in-a-lifetime experience, finding the people in the Communist country kind and generous. Though his students did not celebrate Christmas, they cut down a pine tree, decorated it and brought it to his room on Christmas Eve.
“Going there was one of the best things I’ve ever done,†he later told the Nebraska Guard’s newspaper after he returned to his home state and resumed guard service.
A teacher and coach
Following the year teaching in China, Walz became a teacher in Alliance, teaching history, social studies and geography to middle school and high school students. He also coached football, basketball and track at the middle school and continued to serve in the Guard, one student remembering him mowing his grass while wearing his fatigues.
Roxie Smith, a 32-year veteran teacher in Alliance, recalled that Walz had a passion for teaching and connected with his pupils.
“Tim was just engaging for the students, and I think it was that trip to China,†Smith said. “He was always very kind, especially to the students. You could just tell he loved teaching.â€
Anne Albracht, a former Walz student who has gone on to teach in the Papillion-LaVista Community Schools, said Walz had a folksy, playful and engaging way of teaching. She recalled a history lesson that still sticks with her today. Walz had students take up both sides and re-litigate the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dred Scott decision.
“It was the most electrifying history lesson I ever had — he’s that kind of teacher,†she said. “He engaged you in conversations, he challenged your thinking, and would hold back what he knew to let you work through what you think. Man, is that a valuable thing in any kind of political discourse.â€
Walz became known for leading groups of students on summer trips abroad to China. One year, he took youth basketball and dance teams over with him. His office walls were covered with news clippings from the trips and a Chinese banner.
During his years in Alliance, he also met his wife, Gwen Whipple, a native of Minnesota who taught English and served as sponsor for the debate team and cheerleader squad. Gwen once recalled the pair taught in adjoining portable classrooms, and she became irked by how his loud voice disrupted her classes.
“Oh, the kids, they couldn’t believe the two of them were dating,†Smith recalled. “Miss Whipple and Mr. Walz, that was a big deal. ... The typical high school drama of a small town.â€
The two married in 1994 and spent their honeymoon leading two high school tour groups to China.
Then in 1996, the couple moved to Mankato, Minnesota, Gwen’s hometown. There, Walz continued to teach, coach and serve in the Guard, ultimately retiring after 24 years of total Guard service.
Minnesota was also where Walz launched his political career. In 2006, the Democrat ran for and won a seat in Congress, upsetting a six-term incumbent Republican. After six terms in Washington, he was elected Minnesota governor in 2018 and re-elected in 2022.
Ann Ashford, the wife former Nebraska Rep. Brad Ashford, said Walz and her late husband became good friends during the Ashford’s lone term in the House from 2015 to 2017, bonding over their shared Nebraska roots.
With Walz’s military background and connections, he also helped Ashford guide to passage the bill that authorized a new VA medical facility in Omaha.
“(Brad) would be over the moon right now,†Ann Ashford said.
With Walz’s background as a teacher, coach, guardsman, congressman and governor, she called Walz an outstanding choice for Harris.
“I don’t know how you come up with someone more qualified,†she said. “He understands how to work with labor and everyone from conservative Republicans to the most liberal of Democrats.â€
Walz has come to Nebraska at least twice to speak at Democratic Party dinners, once as a congressman in 2010 and last year as Minnesota's governor.
In 2014, the then-congressman returned to Chadron State to give the commencement address and to receive a distinguished alumni award.
Walz said he appreciated that his alma mater provided middle-class families like his the opportunity to earn a college education.
“The professors at this college wanted us to succeed,†Walz said during his visit. “The door was always open for us to learn and to grow.â€
Walz's former Alliance students were sharing posts on Facebook Tuesday about the big news. All partisanship aside, some said, it was a neat thing. At least one posted a picture of Walz from one of the school trips to China.
“It’s really neat,†said Smith, the former Alliance teacher. “Usually in (elected) office like that, you have no clue where they came from. But it’s just cool to know they were good to kids and they were in the trenches doing the work of an everyday-type citizen. That just kind of kicks all politics aside a little bit.â€