Senator Jerry Moran made a surprise visit to Kansas State professor Barry Flinchbaugh’s agricultural economics lecture Wednesday.
Moran shared his life experience and advice for the students in the lecture.
“I’m a first-generation college graduate with a huge passion in history and politics,” Moran said. “I was the type of kid who would sit on the library steps and read books about that kind of stuff.”
Moran also spoke about his time as an intern in Washington D.C. during the 1970s. The impeachment of Richard Nixon fascinated and inspired him to become a leader of the country.
Moran then shared stories from past visits to Flinchbaugh’s lectures.
“My best shot at Dr. Flinchbaugh — one of the first times I came in, I wore a cap and listened to him for what seemed like forever,” Moran said. “He’s complaining about the quiz scores, and I finally piped up and said, ‘Well, maybe if we had a better professor, we would have done better!’ Ever since then, he’s had some intuition that I’m in the room.”
As the class period came to an end, Moran answered students’ questions. One student asked about the general population’s misconceptions of legislators.
“I’m not just a senator,” Moran said. “I have other interests. It’s hard to make that case when people don’t know you well.”
Moran continued, talking about how many people think senators live an easy, luxurious life.
“I generally drive myself around,” Moran said. “I just traded in my Ford F-150 because it hit 244,000 miles on it. I think about that as I put quarters in a vending machine at 10 o’clock at night to get out a can of tuna to go back to my desk.”
Garrett Kays, Moran’s legislative correspondent, told students about internship opportunities in Moran’s office.
“We’d love to have K-State interns in our office,” Kays said.
