Since the Covid-19 pandemic, there has been renewed interest in local school board races among grassroots organizers. Lockdowns and concerns over sexually explicit reading materials and content revolving around Critical Race Theory have fueled campaigns that previously would have brought little attention.
In February, Pat Beckham, a candidate for Bellevue School Board, invited Chris Hargis of Springfield to a local Sarpy GOP meeting to get involved in local races.
“I said, ‘yeah, I’ll go to a meeting,'” Hargis recalled. “And before I left, I was running for school board.” Hargis is now one of six candidates currently running for three open seats on the Springfield Platteview Community Schools Board of Education.
Hargis has spent years coaching Little League football and considered it job experience for such a role. “I’m going to be putting in a lot of time, I’m not going to get paid, and I’m going to have a bunch of parents probably screaming at me,” he said. “So I think that’s probably what this is going to be like.”
While many parents have been concerned over their children being “indoctrinated” in public school, Hargis has a basic approach. “I’m going to indoctrinate them with reading, writing, math, science, which is the absolute number one reason they go there. And they should be able to do it in a safe environment, and not only for the kids, but for the teachers.”
Out of Poverty into Corporate America
Raised in South Omaha by a single mother working three jobs, Hargis understands what it means to do things on his own. Today, that includes home remodeling, fixing his vehicles, and running the family business.
“You learn to do a lot of things when you’re broke,” Hargis said. “When you’re broke, you’ve got to do it. You can’t pay somebody to come fix stuff … and I didn’t have a father in my life, so I had no idea how to do all this stuff.”
Hargis saw education as a way out of poverty, working full-time while attending the University of Nebraska-Omaha and graduating in three years with a degree in Marketing. “I’m the first one [in my family] to graduate high school, so when I think about generational wealth, I understand it’s going to be a long road,” Hargis said.
Hargis then entered the corporate world, working for several Fortune 500 companies and at one point spending six months working overseas.
From Urban to Rural
Over the course of 20 years, Hargis witnessed changes in corporate culture that gave him the impetus to strike out on his own. Today, Hargis has moved from Omaha’s urban corridors to the rolling cornfields of Springfield, where he and his wife run a health clinic.
Since launching his campaign, Hargis has held a Day of Action in June, with volunteers placing literature at 1,300 locations in the district. He and numerous volunteers have walked in parades for Springfield Days and the Sarpy County Fair in June and August, respectively. He has also knocked on around 800 doors in his community, often being the first and only school board candidate residents have met in person.
“I have had more people say that they’ve never seen a school board candidate knock on their door, ever. And those people are 30-year residents of Springfield,” Hargis said.
Hargis has three adult children who have graduated from Platteview High School and one grandchild enrolled in the Springfield school district, so his involvement in this race is personal. “Whenever I get involved in something, I’m either going to do it 100%, or I’m not going to do it. So once I dive in, it’s all-in,” Hargis said.
