I retired from the military in 2022. After retiring I wanted to find a way to continue to serve my community. I decided to get involved with local politics and made a run for the Wood County Board of Education in 2022 and 2024. I came up short in both elections. Although I came up short, I felt like I accomplished a lot, and I exposed a lot of things to the people of Wood County that they may not have been aware of before.

I learned a lot over the two campaigns I ran. Not only did I learn a lot about the Board of Education, I learned a lot about how our political system works in general. I began paying a lot more attention to what goes on in city council, our county commission, and our state legislature. I learned there is a lot more to government than our federal offices, and that our local offices are where we can make the biggest difference in our everyday lives.

After the 2024 election I was mentally and physically exhausted with all things politics. I had basically been campaigning for two years, and it had definitely taken a toll on me. I decided it was time to take a break and step back from my involvement with politics for a while. During this break I spent more time with my family and got started spending more time helping my son improve his baseball skills for his little league baseball team. I started becoming more involved with my post with the Veterans of Foreign Wars.

Helping my son with his little league baseball and doing things to help veterans have been far more rewarding than anything I have done by running for office or being involved with politics. Politics has taken time from my family; I have made enemies and lost friends. I have burned bridges.

Some of the bridges I’ve burned cannot be rebuilt and I don’t want to rebuild them. There are some I would like to rebuild if possible.

A lot of my political views have changed over the last 6-9 months as I’ve seen how people I believed in have turned into the opposite of what I thought they were. Politics has become divisive and hateful. Nothing meaningful gets accomplished, because as we’ve seen in Utah on Sept. 10, 2025, a young man was murdered because he had differing political views than other people.

I no longer want to be involved in that political arena. Politics should be a free and open exchange of ideas for the betterment of the people.

With all this being said, I have decided that I will no longer seek any elected office for the foreseeable future. There are far more important things for me to focus my time and energy on where I can actually make a difference and have an impact on people’s lives. I have also decided to file for a request to dismiss the lawsuit I have filed against the Wood County Board of Education and board member Debra Hendershot. It’s time to move on from divisive hateful politics and work on uniting the people and working towards the common good of a truly great America where we all stand with each other no matter what our personal beliefs are.