The Kansas City Star
TOPEKA - Tim Shallenburger never expected to be running for governor of Kansas. He hadn't planned to be speaker of the House or state treasurer either.
The 48-year-old Baxter Springs banker thought he would spend a few years in public service, then go back home.
But something always seemed to get in the way. Opportunities presented themselves. Challenges materialized.
Now, Shallenburger, the man who says he just wanted to back a GOP candidate for governor who shared his principles, finds himself running for governor after defeating three other contenders in the Aug. 6 Republican primary.
His political road began in the mid-1980s when the young Baxter Springs banker, who described himself as "just a normal kid from a normal family," read a newspaper story about dangerous pollution from abandoned lead and zinc mines near his hometown.
"I was sitting there in my cushy chair in my corner office reading this, and I'm thinking I've got to move," Shallenburger recalled. "I can't live here anymore."
Instead of leaving the town where he grew up, he decided to tackle the problem himself. He won an open House seat in a Democratic district and worked to eliminate the pollution.
With southeast Kansas part of a new federal Superfund site and cleanup progressing, Shallenburger was ready to leave the Legislature and go back to the bank and start earning money for his wife, Linda, and daughter, Candice, now a college student in Florida.
"The good and bad about me is that money has never motivated me, so I've never had any of it," Shallenburger said. "But you do have to have enough income to keep things together."
But friends urged him to stay on and run for speaker pro tem.
He won.
Then he knocked off Robert Miller of Wellington, who was seeking his second term as House speaker, and held the speaker's post for two two-year terms.
Early in his House career, Shallenburger had become associated with a group of conservative members who called themselves "The Rebels." They concentrated on opening House operations to the rank and file rather than allowing a few leaders to wield power.
The Rebels won rule changes that opened the process, and Shallenburger carried that openness to his years as House speaker.
House members from both parties had access to the speaker's office. Shallenburger listened to them all. He used consensus to build his programs.
"He called people into his office and listened to them talk instead of trying to sell them an agenda," said Rep. Melvin Neufeld, an Ingalls Republican who served with Shallenburger.
When his second term as speaker ended, "I was ready to go home," Shallenburger said.
But Dennis Wilson, the Johnson County treasurer who was a state representative at the time, encouraged him to run for state treasurer in 1998.
Again, he won.
"I convinced him he would be the right candidate," recalled Wilson, who worked for Shallenburger in the treasurer's office for 21/2 years and today is his Johnson County campaign chairman. "As far as I'm concerned, he's the best treasurer we've ever had."
Shallenburger moved his family to Topeka to a house just a block from Cedar Crest, the governor's residence.
In his spare time he enjoys working in his yard. He says it keeps stress in check. His family and friends see him as a laid-back person.
"I don't get mad. I don't get angry. I don't stress out," he said. "There are way more important things than what I have to deal with day in and day out that real people deal with. I'm real thankful I work in the air conditioning."
To relax, the GOP nominee likes to go to the movies when he has time. He prefers comedies.
At home, he sometimes watches TV and laughs out loud at old "Three Stooges" movies and reruns of "The Andy Griffith Show."
Generally, Shallenburger is seen as one who never gets riled.
Bill Arnall of Miami, Okla., a longtime friend, said Shallenburger once told him: "You can't hold a grudge. If you do, that's all you'll be doing."
With Republican Gov. Bill Graves unable to seek a third consecutive term, Republicans were searching for a strong candidate.
U.S. Rep. Jerry Moran of Hays was the heir apparent, and Shallenburger was prepared to back him.
"He just wanted to back someone," said Linda, Shallenburger's wife of 25 years. "He had no great thoughts about being governor. He wanted to help someone who would fight for the same causes he wanted to fight for."
When Moran finally decided to seek re-election to Congress, Shallenburger was pressed to decide whether to run.
He kept asking Linda what she thought.
" `Dear, that has to be your decision.' That's what I would tell him every time," she recalled.
About a year ago on the weekend when he finally decided to run, Shallenburger asked his wife once more.
"Finally I said, `I think you should run,' and that surprised him."
When he asked why she thought he should run, she said, she told him, "I think you would make a great governor."
Shallenburger had friends scattered across the state who agreed to help.
During the primary campaign, Shallenburger never lost an opportunity to say, "I'm the conservative."
He has the support of abortion opponents and is opposed to gun control.
"When he was speaker of the House, he made sure we were treated fairly," said Mary Kay Culp, a spokeswoman for Kansans for Life, the state's largest organization of abortion opponents. "He seems to be a really fair and thoughtful person."
Despite his conservative credentials, Shallenburger could boast of labor support during most of his political career, support that traditionally goes to Democrats.
Responding to his pro-labor voting record, the political action committee of the Kansas AFL-CIO endorsed him when he was running for the House and in his campaign for state treasurer.
This year, his Democratic opponent got the nod from the state labor organization, although the state employee union backed both major-party candidates in the governor's race.
Unions were part of Shallenburger's early life. His father, Lloyd, was a union electrician and at one time was involved in organizing his work place.
Despite his endorsements, Shallenburger said he doesn't expect to win any popularity contests during his first years as governor, should he be elected.
Not raising taxes to meet demands and cutting spending aren't necessarily popular.
"That's why it doesn't happen very often," he said, "so I know I'll be lonely at the top in this job."
To reach John L. Petterson, who covers Kansas government and politics, call (785) 354-1388 or send e-mail to jpetterson@kcstar.com.
The Kansas City Star
TOPEKA - That Kathleen Sebelius could become the next Kansas governor is about as surprising as sunshine in summertime, friends and family say.
Connect the dots: She is the daughter of a former Ohio governor and congressman. She married the son of a Kansas congressman. She is a community activist, former state lawmaker, a two-term statewide official.
Then there are the intangibles: An innate desire to lead. A well-honed self-confidence. A calling, instilled as a child, to give back to society. An unfaltering drive to excel.
The final ingredient is an unbridled energy level that has Sebelius planning lists of activities during what were supposed to be relaxing family vacations.
A run for governor? You bet.
"She was," says neighbor and friend Laura Kelly, "just born to do this."
For her part, Sebelius says the decision to run wasn't all that inevitable. Either way, she enters the general-election phase of the campaign in an unusual position. Democrats rarely win races for Kansas governor that do not feature an incumbent Republican seeking re-election.
Based on early polling, Sebelius clearly has a shot.
"She likes to be in charge," said Ellen Gilligan, Sebelius' younger sister.
Sebelius, 54, is a product of a family accustomed to public scrutiny. At home in Cincinnati, even before her father, John Gilligan, began his political climb, Sebelius' mother instilled a deep sense of propriety in her four children. Perfection was not demanded. But standing up when an adult entered the room was expected as well as a direct look in the eye and a firm handshake.
"The standards were fairly minimal but pretty specific," she recalls.
Gilligan won a seat in Congress when Sebelius was 16. He lost a re-election bid two years later, then was defeated in a 1968 Senate race.
Two years later, when Sebelius was 22, he won the governorship.
Sebelius spent a portion of those years immersed in her father's campaigns, passing out literature on street corners and sometimes giving speeches on his behalf. Friends say her experiences taught her the importance of preparation and the value of a dignified presentation.
During her years as a state lawmaker, the always well-coiffed Sebelius was regarded as unflappable and rarely was caught off-guard.
"I've never seen her rattled," said former Democratic state Sen. Bill Brady. "She's cool, calm and collected."
Sebelius attended all-girls schools through college. She played sports -- field hockey, tennis, basketball -- and says she benefited from an environment in which a girl could be class president as well as class secretary.
Along the way, her father insisted that Sebelius could become anything she wanted. Gaining that sense of self-confidence was crucial for a woman who came into prominence in the 1980s, when men still dominated public offices, said a former statehouse colleague, Joan Wagnon.
"She knows she can do this job," Wagnon said.
During high school, her parents stressed community service for summer activities. Sebelius worked as a hospital candy striper, a nursing home volunteer and a counselor at a camp for physically handicapped kids.
For John Gilligan, the cause continues. At 81, he serves as a Cincinnati school board member.
Sebelius met her husband, Gary, in Washington, D.C., after she graduated from Trinity College in the nation's capital. After a wedding in the Ohio governor's mansion, she followed her husband back to Kansas, where he started his law practice. Topeka was far smaller than Cincinnati or Washington.
Still, Sebelius said she soon felt at home because she recognized that Topeka was good for families.
Her first job in Kansas was a three-year stint as an aide to the head of the state Corrections Department, where she focused on legislation and agency procedures. In 1978, with a University of Kansas master's degree in public administration in her pocket, Sebelius became head of the Kansas Trial Lawyers Association.
She left in 1986 and ran a winning race for the Kansas House. Her work with the trial lawyers gave her a leg up on other freshmen in legislative smarts. But Sebelius was not one who appeared eager to leap past others to assume power.
She asked for advice, Wagnon recalled. She set out to learn. Before long, she was organizing hearings on children's and family issues and working with Republicans to get that done.
Her hustling style earned respect.
After an eight-year career, including two years in which Democrats held a rare House majority, Sebelius took aim at insurance commissioner, a statewide office not held by a Democrat since the 1880s. She won and glided to re-election in 1998 with 59 percent backing.
Republicans and Democrats alike applauded her for modernizing the office and refocusing the office on consumers. She excelled at communicating and building coalitions, said GOP Rep. Bob Tomlinson of Roeland Park, who worked with her.
Former Republican Sen. Rich Becker of Lenexa said the agency was lightning fast when it came to returning telephone calls.
"I mean, it was immediate," Becker recalls of the responses. "Immediate."
So it's not a surprise that Sebelius is demanding.
"She expects her staff to work as hard as she does and be as thorough as she is," said former aide Tama Wagner. "She expects a lot."
At her turn-of-the-century Victorian home in the prestigious Potwin neighborhood of Topeka, the focus is on family, cooking, entertaining and music. The Sebeliuses have two boys: Ned, a 21-year-old Georgetown University junior who's working on the campaign, and 18-year-old John, who left this week for his freshman year at the Rhode Island School of Design.
"Her main focus is family," John Sebelius said. "Every dinner when we're not together she gets the feeling the family might be splitting up."
For Sebelius, life has been a constant juggling act of tending to family, job, campaigns and self. The key, friends say, is the balance she brings to her life.
"I've chosen to do things that demand a lot of time and energy if you're going to do them well," she says.
And, she adds, she's going to do them well.
"She's a hard act to follow," Ellen Gilligan said.
To reach Steve Kraske, political correspondent, call (816) 234-4312 or send e-mail to skraske@kcstar.com.
• Name: Kathleen Sebelius
• Party: Democrat
• Age: 54
• Government experience: Insurance commissioner 1995-2002; member of the Kansas House, 1987-1995; Governmental Ethics Commission member, 1975-1977; special assistant to the Kansas secretary of corrections, 1975-1978.
• Family: Married to Gary Sebelius, a Topeka lawyer recently named a U.S. magistrate judge. Two sons: Ned, 21, and John, 18.
• Quote: "More than anything, the next governor must be committed to quality education for every child in the state, and to protecting the funds needed for education."