ROCHESTER — It was the voice that made the earliest impression on Gwen Walz.
Well before they became a couple and a political partnership, Gwen Whipple and Tim Walz were
teachers in a Nebraska classroom
that was divided down the middle by a partition. She taught English while he taught social studies.
Hearing how engaged his students in Walz’s classroom, she “became smitten,” according to the Star Tribune.
On their first date, the couple saw the 1993 psychological thriller “Falling Down” about an angry unemployed man who becomes unhinged and increasingly violent in response to a series of provocations. Later, they ate at a Hardee’s.
Walz said when he leaned in for a kiss, Gwen rebuffed him, and he replied, “That’s fine, but you should know I’m going to marry you.”
They wed in 1994 and two years later, they moved to Minnesota where they continued to work as teachers.
Gwen was born in Glencoe, Minnesota, and grew up in western Minnesota alongside three sisters. After receiving degrees from Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter and Minnesota State University in Mankato, Gwen began her teaching career in western Nebraska. That’s where she met Tim Walz.
“It’s true; the best thing that happened to me was meeting and marrying Gwen. Without a doubt, I outkicked my coverage,” Walz said using a football metaphor in a 2018 bio from his campaign for governor at the time.
When Vice President Kamala Harris picked Tim Walz to be her running mate, it added a perspective rarely found on a national ticket: That of a public school teacher. Lyndon Johnson, who taught poor Mexican students in Texas, was the last president to be a classroom teacher. That Gwen was also a teacher added to the novelty of the pick.
Second gentleman Doug Emhoff, U.S. Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris, vice presidential running mate Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and his wife Gwen Walz attend a campaign rally in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S., August 6, 2024.
Kevin Lamarque/REUTERS
Gwen Walz didn’t easily hand out As. She could be demanding.
Tracy Frederick Corcoran was a student in both Walzes’ classrooms at Mankato West High School in Mankato. Corcoran recalled how she was taken aback by a “marked up” paper Gwen had returned to her. She considered herself a good student and not particularly challenged by school. She wasn’t used to bad marks.
“Sitting alongside her, it was very much, ‘Here’s some ways you’re doing really great work, here’s some ways you can improve’ and then ‘How would you like my help? How can I support you?’” she said.
In addition to teaching, Gwen worked as an administrator and coordinator in Mankato Area Public Schools, “working to eliminate the achievement gap,” her biography states. She also taught in public, alternative and migrant schools.
Their struggles are the kind that many couples can relate to. The couple have two children, Hope and Gus.
On the campaign trail, Walz has described their infertility struggles and how they used IVF during Gwen’s seven years of fertility treatment at Mayo Clinic in Rochester to conceive. IVF has become part of the political battle over reproductive rights.
“It wasn’t by chance that when we welcomed our daughter into the world, we named her Hope,” he told the campaign’s first rally in Philadelphia.
Unlike many well-to-do politicos, two breadwinners on a teacher’s salary provide a comfortable, middle-class existence, but not a high-off-the-hog one. When Walz was elected governor in 2018, the couple sold their house and moved into the governor’s mansion.
Neither of them owns a single stock, according to financial disclosures.
She picks and chooses her issues. And when she does speak, it’s rarely through social media. Her Instagram account was only recently created.
True to her teaching roots, Gwen talks about education’s potential to uplift. She speaks about how education can reduce recidivism in prison populations.
“Education is transformational. I believe that in every sense of the word,” Walz said during a 2019 interview with PBS. “And if we’re going to solve problems, we have to look at real ways to solve problems. And education is a real predictor of not going to prison.”
Mark Liebow, a southern Minnesota Democratic official and husband to DFL Rep. Tina Liebling, said he got to know Gwen when Tim Walz launched his bid for Congress. He calls her a “star, an amazing person.”
“She’s smart and she’s articulate. She thinks appropriately about politics,” Liebow said. “She and I have talked about being the political spouse kind of thing. She gets it.”
When Tim Walz was elected to Congress in 2006, there was no formal role for his wife, although she described herself as working behind the scenes. She gave suggestions to the speeches Walz gave. When he was
elected governor 12 years later,
she took on a more formal role, establishing her own office in the Capitol.
Her first public event as first lady of Minnesota was a rally for restoring voting rights for people convicted of felonies who have served their sentences.
Gov. Tim Walz and First Lady Gwen Walz spoke to hundreds of women who rallied at the Capitol on Friday, March 8, 2019, in support of a constitutional amendment guaranteeing people of all gender identities equal rights under the law.
Forum News Service file photo
But increased visibility comes with risk.
At a panel discussion, the moderator’s line of questioning about racial disparities in the criminal justice system appeared to expose the panelists, including Walz, as unprepared to discuss the topic, according to a Minnesota Public Radio report. The governor’s aides pressed the hosting public television station to delete the footage. A Walz administration spokesperson later expressed regret for the “overreaction.”
Gwen was also criticized from the right for what some thought as tone-deaf comments she made during
Minneapolis’s 2020 racial justice protests
sparked by the death of George Floyd.
In a viral video, Gwen Walz noted the smell of burning tires and said she kept the window open for as long as she could “because I felt that was such a touchstone of what was happening.”
If Harris and Tim Walz are elected to the White House in November, Gwen will close her chapter as the first lady of Minnesota and transition into a new role: The second lady of the United States.
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Publish date : 2024-08-16 00:57:00
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