Tim Walz's Gay-Straight Alliance students remember him as accepting and goofy

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, and now Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate, was a high school teacher and football coach in rural Minnesota nearly two decades ago. He also devoted time and energy to help his students create the school’s first Gay-Straight Alliance in 1999, and several students who were part of it remember “Mr. Walz” as goofy and accepting of everyone.

Jacob Reitan, now an LGBTQ activist and lawyer, was a founding member of the GSA at Mankato West High School in Mankato, Minnesota, about 80 miles southwest of Minneapolis. He said Walz and his wife, also a teacher at the school, provided vital support during Reitan’s formative years.

“Both Tim and Gwen were incredibly supportive of their gay students, and they modeled values of inclusivity and respect,” Reitan, 42, told MSNBC this week. “I was bullied in high school. [Their values] helped not just me, but it also, I think, helped the bully. It showed the bully a better path forward, and I can think of no one better than Tim Walz to show that better path forward for America.”

Fellow GSA member Seth Elliot Meyer attended Mankato West from 2000-2004 and had Walz for 11th grade history. Meyer, 38, said he initially expected to hate Walz, because he was a football coach and a hunter.

“I was a leftist punk rock, anti-everything kind of kid,” Meyer said. “In the year that I had him, what I learned is that he really cared about everyone and wanted everyone to be seen.”

Meyer, who was out as bisexual in high school, started attending GSA meetings his freshman year. He said he and the four other members of the club were scared to be seen together because they feared bullying.

“I had a really hard time in high school, and I felt like a lot of teachers wanted me to