CSC graduate elected to Congress

A Democrat, Walz received about 52 percent of the vote while defeating incumbent Gil Gutknecht, who has held the seat since 1995, by 10,455 votes.

Walz, 42, teaches geography, history and sociology at Mankato West High School. He was born in West Point, spent most of his childhood in Valentine and moved with his parents, Jim and Darlene Walz, to Butte when he was a sophomore in high school.

Jim Walz, who died in the mid-1980s, was superintendent of schools in Dodge, Valentine and Butte.

The new congressman graduated from Chadron State in 1989 and spent the following year teaching English and American history and culture in southern China. Afterwards, he led tours to China several summers

After the year in China, Walz taught geography in Alliance for six years before moving to Mankato in 1996. His met his wife, Gwen, a native of Minnesota, in Alliance. They have a 5-year-old daughter, Hope, and a son, Gus, who was born Oct. 13 during the heat of the campaign.

Darlene Walz spent the past three weeks taking care of the new baby while Gwen helped her husband with the campaign as much as possible. Two of the new congressmen’s siblings, Jeff of Lecanto, Fla., and Sandy Dietrich of Alliance, also attended CSC.

Walz told the St. Paul Pioneer Press that he credits three issues for swinging a majority of the voters to him. They were the war in Iraq, a perception of government corruption and plans to upgrade the Dakota, Minnesota and Eastern tracks so the railroad can haul coal from Wyoming to power plants in Minnesota.

The railroad scheme was ardently opposed by many because it would bring increased rail traffic through downtown Rochester and near Mayo Clinic. The 2005 omnibus transportation bill includes a $2.3 billion federal loan for the railroad improvements, but few details of the loan have been made public.

After serving 24 years, Walz retired last year from the National Guard with the rank of command sergeant major. He served with the First 125th Field Artillery Battalion, a National Guard unit from Minnesota, during the early portion of the conflict in Afghanistan.

During an interview last spring, Walz criticized both parties for failing to ask tough questions about the war. He described himself as “a moderate Democrat.”

Minnesota has eight seats in the House of Representatives. Walz’s district is in the southeast corner of the state.

In 2002, Walz was one of six Minnesota teachers to receive a $10,000 award recognizing their high performances and contributions to the teaching profession. He also received an Ethics in Education award from the Minnesota Academic Excellence Foundation.