Teacher, coach and family man: Tim Walz is the Midwest dad courting the White House

The governorship of Minnesota may have launched Tim Waltz onto the national stage – and now into a battle for the White House – but it was the former teacher’s wife who brought him to the Land of 10,000 Lakes in the first place.

Gwen Walz, nee Whipple, was born and raised in Minnesota before making a fateful foray after college into teaching across the border in Nebraska; there, she met another young educator and member of the Army National Guard. Tim Walz had grown up in West Point, a small Cornhusker enclave nearly 300 miles south of his future wife’s hometown, and already counted several years of military service under his belt when he decided to ask Gwen out.

Thanks to encouragement from her sister, she agreed; their first date at the only movie theater in town – followed by a stop at Hardee’s, naturally – soon blossomed into a romance, then a 1994 marriage. Exactly 30 years later, the two teachers and their two children now proudly hold the title of First Family of Minnesota — while throwing their hats in the ring for Second Family of America.

Family – both the one who raised him and the one he’s built with Gwen – has deeply molded Walz’s professional path and political positions.

His parents, a public school administrator and homemaker, “were certainly New Deal,” Walz told Minnesota Public Radio, outlining a pedigree that made him born to be a Democrat.

“Growing up Catholic, we had John Kennedy memorabilia in the house … she was pregnant with me when he was assassinated, and I guess there was a debate about calling me ‘John’ when she was picking names,” Walz said.

“Timothy” won out in the end, but his parents continued to instill their Democratic values throughout his youth as he played football and basketball on