April 1, 2024 • 40 mins
From rural Nevada to the bustling corridors of Capitol Hill, Celeste Malloy's story is nothing short of inspirational. Her tale begins in Hiko, where a childhood filled with outdoor adventures and family resilience laid the groundwork for her fierce dedication to public service. As Celeste recounts her formative years spent participating in FFA, working at a local truck stop, and absorbing the work ethic of her parents, you'll feel the depth of her American roots and understand the experiences that molded her commitment to represent Utah's second congressional district.
As she shares the emotion of being sworn in, surrounded by loved ones, listeners are transported to that exhilarating moment. With the same earnestness, Celeste peels back the curtain on the day-to-day whirlwind of congressional duties. Her homage to the mentorship of Congressman Chris Stewart weaves into a promise of impactful service, reminding us that behind politics, lies the heart of human connection and the drive to amplify the voice of the people. Engage with her stories of late-night reflections on the betterment of Utah's communities, and her push to bring continued improvement the political arena. Join in as Celeste Malloy lends insight to her journey and current work.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Listen in everybody.
We're interviewing CelesteMalloy, our new congresswoman
for Utah's second congressionaldistrict.
Hope you like it.
Like where do you come from?
Speaker 2 (00:24):
I am the fourth of six kids.
I was born in cedar city but Igrew up in a little teeny, tiny
town in nevada called heiko, umit's.
It was small then.
It's even smaller now.
My parents still live there andI grew up, you know, probably a
little bit feral.
There were six of us kids and welived in a single wide trailer,
(00:44):
which means we spent a lot ofour time outside and I, you know
, was involved in the thingsthat rural kids are involved in.
I tell people all the timethere were only three things to
do in my hometown shoot things,burn things and swim in the hot
springs, and I did all three.
So I I didn't grow up on a farm.
My dad moved there to work onsomeone else's ranch, so so I
grew up on an acre and ranaround digging holes and riding
(01:07):
bikes and just being outside,yeah, but I didn't raise
livestock.
I did 4-H and FFA as a kid, butI didn't do the livestock stuff
.
I did soil judging, I did rangejudging, I did the 4-H, like
sewing classes and cookingclasses, those kinds of things,
the 4-H, like sewing classes andcooking classes, those kind of
(01:28):
things.
And I was really involved in thehigh school and the things that
go on there, like you are, whenyou go to a really small school
.
I did FFA.
I tried my hand at sports.
It turns out I'm reallyunathletic.
It took me a long time toaccept that reality.
But I am not athletic.
I got cut from my high schoolvolleyball team to accept that
reality.
But I am not athletic.
I got cut from my high schoolvolleyball team and so then I
(01:52):
worked a lot.
In high school I went to workat a local truck stop.
So I was working and going toschool and running around with
my friends, kind of the typicalrural kid things.
That didn't seem thatinteresting or that unique to me
when I was doing them becauseeverybody around me was living
the same way.
But now I realize that that isnot how most people live.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
So your dad was a like, a like, a like a hand,
like a cow hand on a ranch, orwhat did he do?
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Yeah, that's what he moved out there for.
Then he ended up going to workin a mine.
He worked in a tungsten minewhen I was a kid and the mine
closed down.
He stayed on for a while assecurity at the mine and then
you know the way it happens inrural towns you kind of do
whatever job.
So he worked for the State RoadDepartment for a while, he
worked at the bank for a whileand now he's working on a ranch
(02:34):
again, a youth ranch.
So he's doing ranch work butalso helping kids learn to be
responsible adults, which heloves.
How about your mom?
My mom's wonderful?
She was a stay-at-home mom, butshe was also the Avon lady the
whole time.
I was.
But she sold makeup, which forme as a little girl was really
fun.
I would, I would spend hourssometimes looking through the
(02:54):
Avon catalog at all the thingsin there and smelling the
perfume samples.
I just thought it was soglamorous.
But I didn't realize as a kidthat that meant my mom was a
small business owner.
I just thought of her as a mom,but she had her thing that she
did that empowered her and gaveher a sense of autonomy.
She was also a substituteteacher and she substituted at
(03:16):
the HICO post office, which wasjust about a couple hundred
yards from where I grew up.
So that was really cool.
We had the coolest post officeI've ever seen.
It was in our neighbor's houseand we didn't have post office
boxes.
We had cloth bags that hung onthe wall in the post office so
we could have stolen anyone'smail, but nobody did, because
(03:37):
Bonnie kept an eye on things inthe post office.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
So you just called your neighbor, like hey, what's
in my mail today?
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Yeah, yeah, I remember when my brothers got
their mission calls, bonniewould call and say, hey, it just
came in the mail so that my momcould run down and get it.
That's awesome, yeah.
So how many siblings did youhave?
Five, I have four brothers, onesister.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
Four brothers one sister.
Apparently.
You've done all the jobs in theworld.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Yeah, they just they hustled all the time and I
didn't know that wasn't normaleither.
But my parents worked hard tomake sure that we could have the
kind of childhood they wantedus to have, where we could grow
up in a rural area and haveopportunities.
In a small school you get to doa little bit of everything, you
don't get pigeonholed too early, and they were really involved
(04:22):
in the activities we did.
My dad was a scoutmaster, mybrothers were all in scouts and
my mom and my sister and I allclogged together Cool, that's
way cool.
Yeah, it was a little iconicAmericana kind of childhood.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
So how did you get involved in 4-H then?
What sparked that?
Speaker 2 (04:43):
It's just what kids did during the summer.
I don't really remember how Igot involved.
I think they asked my mom toteach the sewing class, and so I
did that, but I remember takingit from other people too.
I don't know.
I just I just went along withthings.
I don't remember being overlyambitious as a kid.
I just did what I did.
When the book mobile showed up,I and got a book.
(05:04):
When it was time to go to 4-H,I went to 4-H.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
So how big was the town when you were there?
What was the size?
Speaker 2 (05:11):
I think there were about a hundred people there
when I was growing up.
My sister and I were trying tocount.
We would make spud nuts for allof our neighbors at Christmas
and it seems like we made ahundred dozen spud nuts and took
a dozen to most of the families.
So I don't know whatever thatcomes out to in in our little
tiny trailer house kitchen.
(05:32):
Yeah, oh yeah, that's a child.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Yeah and that's that just like brings back.
I thought I came from a smalltown.
My hometown was like 2 000people and I was like, oh man,
your hometown is so tiny and,yeah, graduated with 60 but 100
people in it, yeah, and I justassumed that's the same way I
would live as an adult, right?
Speaker 2 (06:07):
You only know what your childhood is like as a
child, and so you think it'snormal, and I couldn't have
imagined the things I'm actuallydoing as an adult.
I had no frame of reference forthat.
I assumed that I would, youknow, get married, have a bunch
of kids and be doing the samekind of things my mom did.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
So then, so you went from, so you went from 4-H and
you got in.
I'm trying to remember what youwent to Southern Utah, right.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
Yeah, so I did FFA in high school and I learned soil
judging and range judging in FFA.
My senior year I went to theFFA state contest at SUU and won
the soil judging contest,actually tied with my high
school best friend, and we hadsimilar GPAs, similar scores on
the contest.
So one of the professors at SUUwent and got a company in Cedar
(07:00):
to double the scholarship,because whoever won that contest
got a full ride scholarship tosuu as long as they majored in
agriculture, and he got us boththe scholarship so we both got
to go so you had full rightthrough ffa based through
judging yes yes, amazing, I know.
So I show up at every ffa eventI can and tell the kids like
(07:23):
these, the things you're doingright now don't seem like
they're huge things, but theycan be.
In fact I'm wearing I'm wearingmy FFA bracelet right now.
I went to their stateconvention in Logan last week
and they gave me a Taylor Swiftbead bracelet that says Utah,
ffa, and I'm wearing iteverywhere because when I was a
kid, I mean I knew I wanted togo to college.
(07:43):
I knew I needed to go tocollege and I knew I needed to
pay for it myself.
I didn't know how to do thatreally, and FFA gave me a
direction.
It gave me a way to do it.
But when I joined FFA, I thinkI only did it so I could meet
boys from other schools and itdidn't seem like I was doing
anything then.
That would have ripple effectsthrough my whole life.
Now I'm a middle-aged woman andI can look back and see a
(08:06):
direct line between that andwhere I am now.
But it just didn't seemremarkable then.
So I try to give as much backto FFA as I can.
In fact, the night I got sworninto Congress they said you have
about one or two minutes on thefloor to speak when you get
sworn in.
And my chief of staff keptsaying, do you want to write a
speech?
(08:26):
And I was like no, I kind ofknow what I want to say and it
was making him really nervous.
But what I did was quote partof the FFA creed.
I said I believe in the promiseof better days through better
ways, even as the better thingswe now enjoy have come to us
through the struggles of formeryears.
And that's how I feel aboutbeing in Congress.
I'm looking forward to havingbetter days in the future
(08:47):
because we can do things betterthan we're doing them now.
But I want to pay homage to thestruggles of former years.
We're standing on the shouldersof giants in this country and I
want to be respectful of that.
But I learned that from FFA andthe fun thing about bringing
that up the night I got sworn inthat I didn't anticipate is now
every member of Congress whowas involved in FFA in high
(09:08):
school has come and talked to meabout it and recited part of
the creed and talked about theirexperiences.
I think there are four membersof Congress who are state FFA
presidents and so they asked meif I was a state president.
I was not a state officer, Iwas barely a chapter officer.
I was never the president of myown chapter, but I was involved
in the club.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
So now you can say at Congress, like all those who
are in the Congress FFA club,we're going to go have lunch,
you know whatever.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
So we actually do have an FFA caucus and I did
join it yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
So talking about then what?
So just for listeners, what doyou do now?
Like, what are you doing nowfor people who don't know?
Speaker 2 (09:46):
I am a member of Congress.
I represent Utah's secondcongressional district.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
And did you?
Jumping to the third questionthen, and you kind of already
mentioned this, you go from atown of 100 to FFA, right To
college on an ag scholarship.
Yes, Did you see yourselfsitting in Congress?
Speaker 2 (10:10):
Not even a little bit .
When I was a student, I got aninternship with the NRCS, so I
was a soil conservationisttrainee with USDA and part of
that program was they were goingto offer me a full-time job
when I graduated.
And I graduated, they offeredme a job in Beaver.
I moved 50 miles up the freewayand settled in.
(10:33):
I had a federal retirement planand I liked the work and I kind
of thought that I would do thatuntil I retired or got married
and started having babies,whatever.
There were a couple ofdifferent ways I could see this
going, but never this direction.
This all sort of happenedslowly, one step at a time, over
the course of a lot of years.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
But I think when you end up places where you're meant
to be or want to be, or have apassion about, it feels kind of
surreal, right, yeah, oh,absolutely, and it's like wow,
I'm like this is where I need tobe, or you're really happy.
Is that how you feel now aboutCongress, or how are you doing
in Congress right now?
Speaker 2 (11:13):
Well, I have been in office for almost four months so
I don't know if I have any ideawhat's normal yet, and I'm
already running for reelection.
So most of the time I'm tired.
I'm working a lot of long hours, but it is surreal.
That night I got sworn in, wasone of those rare moments in
life that is just perfect.
I mean, it felt like somethingout of a Disney movie.
(11:35):
I had 200 friends and familymembers up in the gallery
cheering for me.
My parents were there, all ofmy siblings were there.
Yeah, it was really cool.
And John Curtis hosted areception for all of my guests
right afterward in Statuary Hallin the Capitol.
(11:57):
So my nieces and nephews wererunning around the United States
Capitol eating pizza and it wasjust unbelievable.
But it's also a lot of work.
So I came in in the middle of aCongress and I was immediately
in the middle of a stream ofwork, and it's a lot of work,
and I had to hire an entire newstaff and train them and then
file to run again and run acampaign while we were still
(12:19):
setting up the office.
And it's been the most workI've ever done in my life and
I'm a bit of a workaholic, butthis is more work than I've ever
done and it's been the mostwork I've ever done in my life.
And I'm a bit of a workaholic,but this is more work than I've
ever done and it's reallyenjoyable work most of the time.
But there are still momentswhen I think how in the world
did I get here and how am Igoing to make the most of this
opportunity?
Whatever time I'm in Congress, Iwant to make a mark, I want to
(12:42):
make things better than theywere before I got here.
And how am I going to do that?
And I don't get a lot of timeto stop and reflect on the big
picture like that, becausethere's always a list of tasks
in front of me that have to bedone quickly.
So just to fill in some of theholes in my story since we
started with that so I worked inBeaver for about 10 years for
NRCS and then I decided to go tolaw school.
(13:03):
I went to law school at BYU andwhen I graduated I got a job in
St George doing naturalresources law work.
So I was working for WashingtonCounty on their public lands
issues and water issues and itwas the stuff that I liked, the
stuff that kind of spurred me togo to law school in the first
place.
I wanted to be able to changepolicy.
(13:23):
There were policies that werejust stupid, that I didn't like
and I was tired of explainingthem and instead of explaining
policies, I wanted to makepolicies better and I thought
law school was probably a goodway to do it.
I didn't really know how I wasgoing to do it and I've been
really fortunate several timesin my life to just land in the
right place at the right time,and that was one of those
(13:45):
examples.
So I got to work on land policyand water policy and continue
helping farmers and ranchers.
That's what I liked doing atNRCS.
That's what I got to do againat Washington County.
I went to work for the UtahAssociation of Counties doing
public lands policy for all ofthe counties in the state.
I left both of those jobs to goto work for the Water
Conservancy District inWashington County and I'd been
(14:08):
there about five months whenChris Stewart, my congressman,
called and offered me a job.
He needed an attorney, heneeded somebody to do natural
resources, and so I went to workas his legal counsel handling
his natural resources issues.
And that was one of those pinchme kind of experiences where I
thought I can't believe he wasthe first congressman I ever met
and then I was working for himand I was working on policy.
(14:30):
That's what I had wanted to doand I thought this is the honor
of a lifetime to be able to workon federal policy.
I'm just a little girl from Hico, Nevada, who assumed I'd settle
down in a small town with afarm boy and raise a bunch of
kids.
And here I am, walking thehalls of Congress.
(14:51):
It was hard to believe I gotthat opportunity.
Congressman Stewart wasresigning.
He encouraged me to run and Ithought he was crazy at first,
but he said I think you'd besurprised how people would
respond to you if you'd get outthere and start talking to them,
(15:13):
Tell them what you've beendoing and how much you know and
how much you care.
And I wouldn't have done itwithout his encouragement and I
really appreciate him for that.
I heard a quote from AbrahamLincoln that he said any success
I have is because I have a dearfriend who believed in me and I
didn't have the heart to lethim down.
And I feel like that's my storytoo.
(15:34):
I had a dear friend my boss whobelieved in me and I didn't
have the heart to let him down.
So I went and ran and ranreally hard and ran a really
good grassroots campaign talkingto the people that I've been
working with for years and years, talking to local elected
officials and farmers andranchers and people who don't
always feel like they have avoice in Congress, people who
feel like policy happens to them, yeah, and so now I feel a huge
(16:00):
responsibility to make surethat I spend my time in Congress
really representing thosepeople, people who don't always
feel like Congress is listeningto them, people who feel like
they don't have a way to changepolicy, people who are just like
me and what I was yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
Well, I mean, historically, that's why we have
every breakfast shop in thenation is full on Saturday
morning, because that's wherefarmers get their anger out,
right, yeah.
Next question, and I think whensomeone is really busy, they
have.
Actually, I want to backtrackjust a little bit.
You said how you're working toget things done.
(16:37):
Right, like, you got to checkthose boxes off.
You got to get things done.
Something that I've become kindof a fan of saying to people,
because of the opportunity thatjust agriculture gives you and
the nature of your job gives you, is you can go from a person
who checks off boxes and likeeight to five, to a person who
(16:59):
is in charge of creating theboxes.
Right, and I mean, do you feelthat way in your job?
Like like, I think it's likethis higher calling right, like,
like everyone says, like theSpider-Man quote right Like, now
you have this greaterresponsibility but, I, think in
that it's kind of like you'regoing into the deep water.
You're like, ah, I don't know Am.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
I doing the right thing.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
What am I doing here?
But now, all of a sudden, youhave the opportunity to make
those boxes.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
Yeah, I get to make boxes.
I also still have to checkboxes.
So there are certain things Ihave to do.
I have to be in Washington DCwhen Congress is in session.
I have to vote when there's avote on the floor.
But in between the things Ihave to do, there are the things
I get to do, and that's whereit really matters who represents
you.
(17:45):
No matter who was in that seat,they would be voting and in
Utah we're a pretty red stateThey'd probably be voting pretty
conservative.
But what really separates areally good representative from
someone who's just putting intheir time is that box creating
that you just talked about.
It's the showing up here inUtah and talking to the people
(18:09):
who shower after work about whatthey need to be able to be
successful.
It's being part of the localcommunity and being plugged in
enough to know what people inUtah need from their
representatives.
So I talk all the time aboutsupporting local elected
(18:30):
officials and I'm a big believerin federalism.
I'm a big believer in separationof powers and I don't think
Congress should get involved intelling local governments how to
do their job.
But because we have so muchfederal regulation and because
we have so much federal land inUtah.
Our local governments aredealing with federal processes
all the time and a big part ofmy job is being there to help
(18:53):
them get through those processes.
But it'd be really easy to dothe job of a congresswoman
without spending so much time onthat.
So it's one of the things I'vereally focused on.
My staff knows I'm reallyfocused on it because those are
the boxes I can create.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
I kind of sit at home and I hope like and I hope like
you're talking about your FFAgroup.
Yeah, man, I hope those peopleare intermingling up there in
Washington.
I hope they're talking aboutjust where they come from and
what they do.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
Well, the good news is we do, yeah, interests
together, so that you'rebuilding relationships In a
legislative body.
You can't do anything on yourown.
You have to convince a majorityof people to vote for whatever
you're doing, and the best wayto be able to do that is to have
(19:41):
relationships with people sothat you can go sit down and
talk to them and have a level oftrust where you can explain.
This is why this is importantto my constituents.
This is why this thing thatmatters in Utah that doesn't
really happen in your state isimportant enough for you to go
vote on it and help us with aproblem we have.
And you're not going to getthere by being a jerk.
You're not going to get thereby treating other people badly,
(20:06):
yeah, or by giving a really good, persuasive speech.
It is a relationship driven townand you've got to be willing to
put in the time to buildrelationships with your peers,
and your staff has to be willingto build relationships with the
people around them.
It is the stuff you learned inkindergarten Don't push people,
don't call names, yeah, and Iknow that isn't how people view
(20:28):
Congress.
I know we look like the kidswho probably didn't do well in
kindergarten because all you seeis the yelling and the name
calling and the pushing.
But in order to get things doneyou've got to get past that.
The people who are mostnotorious for being difficult to
work with don't get much donefor their constituents because
nobody wants to help them withanything then in a person, in a
(20:50):
person who's in a position likeyou are, or really anybody.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
We have so much going on and so much to do, and all
these things that we work outfamily and personal life besides
all that.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Yep.
Well, you might have a familyand a personal life.
I am a workaholic and thatworks out well for my
constituents.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
Yeah, yeah, that's well.
My wife would disagree with youbecause she said I she's like
you know, a 40 hour week is athing, but I like this in 80
hours.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
but I like my job.
Yeah well, you're not on drugs,right?
Speaker 1 (21:21):
you don't have time to do that same yeah, um, I
firmly believe myself, uh, thatthere is something that everyone
has that is still like thatlast thing that you're thinking
about at night.
Yeah, do you have somethinglike that where?
Speaker 2 (21:40):
you're like this is my thing right now.
Yeah, my thing is did I doanything today to make Utah's
lives better?
And it's really easy to getcaught up all day on the to-do
list, and sometimes the thingson the to-do list are necessary,
and sometimes it's just busywork and when I'm crawling into
bed at night I think did I doanything today that makes my
constituents' lives better?
Because if I'm busy with ato-do list but my to-do list
(22:02):
isn't getting me there, thenI've got to change how I'm
spending my time.
What am I doing?
I don't know how long I'm goingto be in Congress.
I'm running for re-election nowby when.
I'm running for re-electionagain in two years, and so
there's no guarantee that I havea long runway on this.
So I've got to make sure thatI'm spending time every day
representing the people inUtah's second congressional
(22:24):
district, while trying to putthings in place that, even after
I'm gone, will keep makingUtah's lives better.
That's my last thing.
That's the thing that keeps meup at night.
It's the thing that wakes me upin a cold sweat in the morning.
It's the thing that motivatesme on the days where I'm tired
and I think I can't do.
Nine events today.
That's what keeps me going.
They've put their trust in me.
(22:45):
They've asked me to gorepresent them and make their
lives better and make thefederal government work better,
and and to to clear some ofthese hurdles, to get things
back in balance.
And that's what I've got tospend my time and my energy on.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
That's a that's a big job and it was just like you
were talking about, like a halfhour ago, the people, um, when,
when president Trump Trumpchanged the boundaries on that
national monument.
Two of them, two of them, yeah,and then they get changed back
again, yeah, and those are thekind of things where you're like
me as a person, as a citizen.
I'm just going like dude why.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
What are we doing here?
Speaker 1 (23:21):
And it doesn't seem like a lasting change and really
, from my perspective, itdoesn't seem like important
things are happening.
It feels like and I don't meanto make it sound like it's not
important it's just like this isgetting tossed around like a
softball and we have real issuesthat you know our ag people
need and our people in the citylimits need and you know we want
(23:42):
to see the lasting change,whatever the change is.
We want to see passion there.
Yeah, no-transcript.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
Presidents shouldn't do that and it should be a
decision that Congress makes.
Congress moves slowly.
Congress represents the peopleand so having those decisions go
through Congress means they'llhappen slower, they'll have more
buy-in and you won't get theback and forth back and forth.
So while the ping-ponging isfrustrating honestly for
(24:41):
everybody, nobody really lovesthat Hopefully, what we can get
out of it is a realization thatthere's a better way to do
things, and that's what I meanwhen I talk about better days.
Through better ways, we canidentify some of the things that
aren't working and get to workon systemic changes that make it
so that long-term, we're notmaking the same mistakes over
(25:01):
and over.
We're looking at the mistakes,identifying why we're making
them and then changing thesystem to address those mistakes
.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
I think the concern, or the thing that it makes me
think about, is like that's thepurpose of Congress, that should
things like that belong inCongress?
Because it's.
It's a.
You know, it takes some arguing, it takes some like to really
get a good solution.
It takes time.
But my concern is, like man,that's every time we're going
back and forth on that.
That's president's time.
We all we'd forth on that.
(25:32):
That's president's time.
We all talk about how busy weare, our schedules, and we're
wasting time doing this back andforth thing where your position
, Congress serves a greatpurpose and that's the kind of
thing that belongs in Congress,right?
Speaker 2 (25:42):
Well, and disagreement is a really good
thing and it's part of theprocess.
And in Congress we don't agreeon things very often.
So somebody has an idea andsomebody else comes in and
disagrees with that idea.
And then somebody else comes inand they agree with part of it,
but they want to see it amendedin this way and pretty soon
you've been through.
It's like a rock going througha tumbler right and you end up
(26:02):
with a smoother rock, a betterrock.
But when one person can just saythis is the idea and that's the
way we have to do it, you don'thave that chance for people to
disagree.
You don't have that chance totalk about what's wrong with the
original idea and how it couldbe made better.
And not every idea needs to beimplemented.
So one of the things thathappens in a deliberative body
like Congress is somebody comesup with an idea and other people
disagree with it and they justcan't convince enough people.
(26:25):
It's a good idea to get it done, that's a good thing, that's
part of the process.
But sometimes the kernel of agood idea is there, but it's
kind of wrapped in a lot of badidea and through that process
you knock a lot of the bad ideaoff.
The bad thing about adeliberative body is usually
nobody gets exactly what theywant.
The good thing is you usuallyend up with a better product
(26:45):
than you would if one personcould just impose their will on
everybody else.
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
I mean and I think that happens in any good process
right when you know, in anextension, I work with several
other ag agents who you know.
I may think something is areally good idea.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
Like well, hold on now, Ethan, like you might be
jumping the gun here a littlebit, and then I'm like, or how
are you going to pay for thisgood idea?
Speaker 2 (27:12):
It's a great idea.
But and I mean, history isreplete with examples of this
right when when one person canimpose their will on everybody
else, then they start havingreally bad ideas and nobody can
stop them.
Uh, we should all have someonein our lives who can stop us
from doing really stupid things,someone who can say, ah, that's
a bad idea, or you've got thebeginnings of a good idea, but
(27:33):
let's take it and make it better.
And so, as frustrating as it isto be one of 435 voting members
of Congress, it's also anopportunity to be one of those
polishers in that tumbler thathelps knock the edge off of
things and refine ideas untilthey are good for the American
people.
They are good for the people ofUtah.
(27:54):
But the thing that is beautifulabout the United States House of
Representatives is that wereally do represent a good
cross-section of the country.
You have farmers and doctorsand PhDs and retired military
and school teachers and smallbusiness owners all sitting on
the same committees talkingabout issues, and you get
(28:15):
multiple points of view frommultiple parts of the country,
from people who have totallydifferent life experiences, and
that's a good thing.
It's a slow thing, it's afrustrating thing, but it's
beautiful in its own way.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
Yeah, okay.
Last two questions, last lasttwo questions.
So let's see, this is myfavorite question.
Okay, I'm ready.
Are you happy?
Speaker 2 (28:42):
I am happy.
I'm tired.
If those of you who arelistening can't see me, I have
dark circles under my eyes, um,but I could not work this hard
at something that didn't make mehappy.
The idea that I can help fixsome of these problems lights me
up inside and gives me energythat I didn't even know I had,
and keeps me going On the harddays when I'm making hard
(29:04):
decisions or when we're just notgetting anywhere and it's
discouraging.
The thing that keeps me going isthat I am so blessed to have
the opportunity to be in theroom where it happens, so to
speak, and that you know, backto your Spider-Man quote I have
great power by being in thatroom, and with that comes a
(29:24):
great responsibility, and it'snot just some vague sense of
responsibility, it's a veryparticular responsibility.
I have a responsibility to makesure the people in Utah's
second congressional districtare well represented.
I have a responsibility to makesure people in Utah's second
congressional district arebetter off now than they were
before I got there, that theyhave the freedom to live their
(29:46):
lives, that they can raise theirkids, own their homes, retire
and be living the American dream, and that makes me happy.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
So I mean and it really you are.
I mean you have such a blessingto be able to like.
I mean you can look out thewindow in any one of these
cities and be like these are mypeople.
Yeah, these are my chief.
My people the flock'm takingcare of whatever you want to
call it.
Yeah, you know, at the end ofthe day, that is your
responsibility, and I thinkthat's such an awesome thing,
(30:17):
because there's a lot of peoplethat like, just depend on you.
They hope you're doing a goodjob.
They really hope that theprocess works.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
And to that end, I have made it a goal to set a
whole new standard for what itmeans to be accountable and
transparent with my constituents.
I go on local radio as often asI can.
I put out a newsletter.
I show up at as many events asI can.
I talk to the local paperswhenever I can, because I want
people to know what I'm doingwith my time, how I'm handling
(30:50):
that responsibility.
There are days that thatresponsibility is sort of
crushing, but one thing I alwaystry to do is make sure that my
constituents know what I'm doing, how I'm doing it and how it
impacts them.
Even when I know they disagreewith me, even when I know
they're not going to likeeverything I'm doing, I know
it's my responsibility to makesure they know what I'm doing.
(31:11):
The other thing I appreciateabout your podcast is that it's
a chance for people to get toknow who I am.
A lot of the communication Ihave with people is in a really
short form, where I'm talkingabout a specific issue and they
hear where I am on the issue.
But I like that whoever listensto this podcast will get to
know a little bit of who I am,what motivates me, where I come
from, and I think that'simportant too.
(31:32):
If I'm going to representpeople, then it helps if they
kind of have a sense of who I am, what my brand is, so to speak.
Yeah, so thank you for givingme an opportunity to share that,
and I just want to say I talkedat the beginning about how I
grew up and had this happychildhood, and I didn't know how
unique my childhood was.
I was surrounded by otherpeople who were like me, and so
(31:54):
I thought that was more normalthan it was, and I suspect
that's true of most people whoare involved in agriculture.
They're around other peopleinvolved in agriculture and they
think that their perspectiveand their lifestyle is more
common than it is.
It's unique, and we need thosevoices involved in public
discourse.
People who are producing food,feed, fiber for a living, people
(32:18):
who are involved in blue-collartrades, people who are working
with their hands and involved intheir communities and living a
rural lifestyle, have a reallyunique perspective on our nation
and the role of government andwhat policy should be.
And I just want to end with aplea to get involved.
(32:40):
Get involved in politics, getinvolved in the schools, get
involved in your communities atwhatever level you feel
comfortable, because your voiceis more unique than you think it
is and people need to hear fromyou.
They need, as part of thatrefining process, we need unique
voices to get involved, becausewhen we disagree, when we have
multiple points of view, we endup with a better product.
(33:01):
We end up with a better policy.
We end up better off as apeople.
So don't be hesitant to getinvolved.
Don't think that everyonearound you is just like you.
Go out there and use your voiceand your platform to advocate
for the things that areimportant to you.
Speaker 1 (33:14):
And that's that's thank you.
And I want to take a sec justtip my hat to, I mean, your mom
and your dad, but especiallyyour mom, because you said
something at the beginning thatI caught, where you said I
didn't realize my mom was abusiness owner.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
That is so.
I don't know, I don't even knowhow to say it, but I can see
when you talk about it.
I can see, when you mentionedthat, that that's important to
you.
That's something I'm proudabout.
Your mom and you're proud ofyour parents yeah, and they did
such a wonderful job in justgiving you the opportunities
that you needed, yes, to bewhere you are today.
Speaker 2 (33:52):
And giving me the confidence that was required to
take some of the risks I'vetaken.
My parents are wonderful.
I'm really grateful for them,and I probably don't tell them
that as often as I should, soI'm going to say it here, and
then I'll let them listen to thepodcast.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
Yes, now this is the break the ice question, so we'll
spray the splices somewhere.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
My wife said, Ethan, when you're talking to her, you
need to break the ice.
You need to ask her somethingthat no one else will ask her.
Okay, my wife has two veryawesome questions that she asks
everyone.
She means the first one is andyou can pick one or do both.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
If you could go back to any event in time, where
would you go to witness anyevent?
Some people pick a lot of thesame ones.
If it was some event where youwere like man, I wish I could
have just been a fly on the wall.
And then the other one is youcould pick anyone to have a
dinner with, living or not.
(34:42):
Who would you want to havedinner?
Speaker 2 (34:43):
with.
Okay, I'm going to answer thequestion of if I could pick
anyone to have dinner with.
Who would it be?
And it's probably a boringanswer to anyone who's not me.
I would go back and have dinnerwith my own grandma.
My maternal grandma lived withus when I was in high school.
She and I were roommates.
We shared bunk beds and weactually even worked at the same
truck stop.
We spent quite a bit of timetogether, yeah, but I was a
(35:06):
teenager and I wasn't as curiousabout her life as I wish I had
been, and she passed away nottoo long after I graduated from
college and now I have so manyquestions.
She lived a really unique lifeand I think she didn't have an
easy life.
She was an orphan by the timeshe was 11.
And she had my dad when she wasreally young and she had a lot
(35:29):
of hardship to overcome in herlife and I knew her as a grandma
and I wish I had been morecurious about things that
happened to her when she wasyounger.
And so if I could have dinnerwith anybody, it would be my
grandma and ask her all thequestions that I didn't ask.
Now my other grandma is stillalive and one of my best friends
(35:49):
, and because of that I've askedmy living grandma, my maternal
grandma, all kinds of questionsthat sometimes she gets tired of
having to answer for me.
But I know now that there's atime clock on the opportunity to
ask those questions, that Idon't want to regret later that
I wasn't curious enough about myown grandma, so that's the
person I would have dinner withif I could have dinner with
(36:11):
anybody Wow.
Speaker 1 (36:12):
Well, keep your journal, because someone's going
to want that from you too.
Speaker 2 (36:15):
You know, congressman Stewart has been telling me to
keep a journal.
I did for a while in juniorhigh and I went back and read it
and I was so embarrassed by thethings I wrote that I burned it
.
So I've struggled my whole lifeto keep a journal, and I should
have.
There've been so many thingsthat I would like to go back and
read about now.
But what I am doing is keepinga gratitude journal, so every
(36:36):
night I write down one thing I'mthankful for, and even that is
a little bit of a record ofwhat's happening in my life
without having to invest a tonof time.
Speaker 1 (36:44):
Yeah, my wife busy mom.
She had a journal that hermother gave her.
That was the.
It was called the one line aday.
Yeah, she just wrote down onething a day.
That happened after she became,after we had our first child,
and she loved that Such a greatidea.
I will tell you this.
So my, my great grandma passedum last summer, on the 4th of
(37:07):
July.
She was 107 years old.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
Wow, that's remarkable.
Speaker 1 (37:12):
And she kept a journal, and I'm not kidding you
, she kept a journal forprobably 80 years and we have
them and they are so magnificent.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
Yeah, what a precious gift.
Speaker 1 (37:23):
Wow, when my dad called her, or my brother was
born and he was sick and he, hecalled my great grandma, you
know, and it's stuff that I justdon't know.
Yeah, so yeah, that thathistory.
I mean that's the purpose ofthis podcast, right when you
come from, and keep that aliveso other people can, like you
said, have the perspective oflike man.
I'm growing up in the middle ofKenosh, Utah, but I'm a
(37:48):
valuable asset and I am beingshaped for a reason and I don't
know where I'm going to end up,but I have a perspective that no
one else has.
Speaker 2 (37:57):
And it's interesting to look back and see what you
thought you were going to doversus what you did.
And I know I'm a totalhypocrite on this one, because
when I was in high school I usedto go over and read to my
neighbor across the street.
She had macular degenerationand was nearing 90 years old and
had kept a journal her wholelife and thought that when she
was an old lady she would goback and read her journals.
(38:19):
But she couldn't read and so Iwould go read them aloud to her
and I was absolutely fascinatedby the things in her journal.
She was on a mission in Hawaiiwhen Pearl Harbor got bombed.
She remembered the Hoover Dambeing built.
She lived in a tent house.
She lived in a house theyordered from Sears Roebuck, and
just the details she wrote abouther day-to-day life were so
fascinating to me severaldecades later, and yet I don't
(38:40):
keep a journal.
Speaker 1 (38:41):
So then you said also we were standing on the
shoulders of giants built thiscountry.
And I can look back in I thinka lot of us can in our own
family history, especially outhere in the West where we go.
You look out that door andyou're like this place must have
sucked to look at in 1830.
Speaker 2 (38:59):
How did they see the potential in this before air
conditioning?
Speaker 1 (39:02):
They did it before these nice gas vehicles yeah.
Speaker 2 (39:07):
Yeah, so you.
So, dear listener, don't belike me Keep a journal.
Speaker 1 (39:14):
Yeah, yes, exactly, we are teaching Celeste right
now.
She needs to keep a record forall of us.
You're right, you're right,anyway.
Well, thank you so much.
Thank you, you're right, you'reright, anyway.
Well, thank you so much.
Thank you, and please, peoplelisten to this and apply it,
because a lot of us in ag don'tgive ourselves enough credit to
think that we can make adifference or be somewhere where
(39:36):
we can have a strong opinion,and Celeste is our living
opportunity to witness thatright now.
So, thank you.
Speaker 2 (39:43):
Thank you you.
Listen in everybody.
We're interviewing CelesteMalloy, our new congresswoman
for Utah's second congressionaldistrict.
Hope you like it.
Like where do you come from?
Speaker 2 (00:24):
I am the fourth of six kids.
I was born in cedar city but Igrew up in a little teeny, tiny
town in nevada called heiko, umit's.
It was small then.
It's even smaller now.
My parents still live there andI grew up, you know, probably a
little bit feral.
There were six of us kids and welived in a single wide trailer,
(00:44):
which means we spent a lot ofour time outside and I, you know
, was involved in the thingsthat rural kids are involved in.
I tell people all the timethere were only three things to
do in my hometown shoot things,burn things and swim in the hot
springs, and I did all three.
So I I didn't grow up on a farm.
My dad moved there to work onsomeone else's ranch, so so I
grew up on an acre and ranaround digging holes and riding
(01:07):
bikes and just being outside,yeah, but I didn't raise
livestock.
I did 4-H and FFA as a kid, butI didn't do the livestock stuff
.
I did soil judging, I did rangejudging, I did the 4-H, like
sewing classes and cookingclasses, those kinds of things,
the 4-H, like sewing classes andcooking classes, those kind of
(01:28):
things.
And I was really involved in thehigh school and the things that
go on there, like you are, whenyou go to a really small school
.
I did FFA.
I tried my hand at sports.
It turns out I'm reallyunathletic.
It took me a long time toaccept that reality.
But I am not athletic.
I got cut from my high schoolvolleyball team to accept that
reality.
But I am not athletic.
I got cut from my high schoolvolleyball team and so then I
(01:52):
worked a lot.
In high school I went to workat a local truck stop.
So I was working and going toschool and running around with
my friends, kind of the typicalrural kid things.
That didn't seem thatinteresting or that unique to me
when I was doing them becauseeverybody around me was living
the same way.
But now I realize that that isnot how most people live.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
So your dad was a like, a like, a like a hand,
like a cow hand on a ranch, orwhat did he do?
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Yeah, that's what he moved out there for.
Then he ended up going to workin a mine.
He worked in a tungsten minewhen I was a kid and the mine
closed down.
He stayed on for a while assecurity at the mine and then
you know the way it happens inrural towns you kind of do
whatever job.
So he worked for the State RoadDepartment for a while, he
worked at the bank for a whileand now he's working on a ranch
(02:34):
again, a youth ranch.
So he's doing ranch work butalso helping kids learn to be
responsible adults, which heloves.
How about your mom?
My mom's wonderful?
She was a stay-at-home mom, butshe was also the Avon lady the
whole time.
I was.
But she sold makeup, which forme as a little girl was really
fun.
I would, I would spend hourssometimes looking through the
(02:54):
Avon catalog at all the thingsin there and smelling the
perfume samples.
I just thought it was soglamorous.
But I didn't realize as a kidthat that meant my mom was a
small business owner.
I just thought of her as a mom,but she had her thing that she
did that empowered her and gaveher a sense of autonomy.
She was also a substituteteacher and she substituted at
(03:16):
the HICO post office, which wasjust about a couple hundred
yards from where I grew up.
So that was really cool.
We had the coolest post officeI've ever seen.
It was in our neighbor's houseand we didn't have post office
boxes.
We had cloth bags that hung onthe wall in the post office so
we could have stolen anyone'smail, but nobody did, because
(03:37):
Bonnie kept an eye on things inthe post office.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
So you just called your neighbor, like hey, what's
in my mail today?
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Yeah, yeah, I remember when my brothers got
their mission calls, bonniewould call and say, hey, it just
came in the mail so that my momcould run down and get it.
That's awesome, yeah.
So how many siblings did youhave?
Five, I have four brothers, onesister.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
Four brothers one sister.
Apparently.
You've done all the jobs in theworld.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Yeah, they just they hustled all the time and I
didn't know that wasn't normaleither.
But my parents worked hard tomake sure that we could have the
kind of childhood they wantedus to have, where we could grow
up in a rural area and haveopportunities.
In a small school you get to doa little bit of everything, you
don't get pigeonholed too early, and they were really involved
(04:22):
in the activities we did.
My dad was a scoutmaster, mybrothers were all in scouts and
my mom and my sister and I allclogged together Cool, that's
way cool.
Yeah, it was a little iconicAmericana kind of childhood.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
So how did you get involved in 4-H then?
What sparked that?
Speaker 2 (04:43):
It's just what kids did during the summer.
I don't really remember how Igot involved.
I think they asked my mom toteach the sewing class, and so I
did that, but I remember takingit from other people too.
I don't know.
I just I just went along withthings.
I don't remember being overlyambitious as a kid.
I just did what I did.
When the book mobile showed up,I and got a book.
(05:04):
When it was time to go to 4-H,I went to 4-H.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
So how big was the town when you were there?
What was the size?
Speaker 2 (05:11):
I think there were about a hundred people there
when I was growing up.
My sister and I were trying tocount.
We would make spud nuts for allof our neighbors at Christmas
and it seems like we made ahundred dozen spud nuts and took
a dozen to most of the families.
So I don't know whatever thatcomes out to in in our little
tiny trailer house kitchen.
(05:32):
Yeah, oh yeah, that's a child.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Yeah and that's that just like brings back.
I thought I came from a smalltown.
My hometown was like 2 000people and I was like, oh man,
your hometown is so tiny and,yeah, graduated with 60 but 100
people in it, yeah, and I justassumed that's the same way I
would live as an adult, right?
Speaker 2 (06:07):
You only know what your childhood is like as a
child, and so you think it'snormal, and I couldn't have
imagined the things I'm actuallydoing as an adult.
I had no frame of reference forthat.
I assumed that I would, youknow, get married, have a bunch
of kids and be doing the samekind of things my mom did.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
So then, so you went from, so you went from 4-H and
you got in.
I'm trying to remember what youwent to Southern Utah, right.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
Yeah, so I did FFA in high school and I learned soil
judging and range judging in FFA.
My senior year I went to theFFA state contest at SUU and won
the soil judging contest,actually tied with my high
school best friend, and we hadsimilar GPAs, similar scores on
the contest.
So one of the professors at SUUwent and got a company in Cedar
(07:00):
to double the scholarship,because whoever won that contest
got a full ride scholarship tosuu as long as they majored in
agriculture, and he got us boththe scholarship so we both got
to go so you had full rightthrough ffa based through
judging yes yes, amazing, I know.
So I show up at every ffa eventI can and tell the kids like
(07:23):
these, the things you're doingright now don't seem like
they're huge things, but theycan be.
In fact I'm wearing I'm wearingmy FFA bracelet right now.
I went to their stateconvention in Logan last week
and they gave me a Taylor Swiftbead bracelet that says Utah,
ffa, and I'm wearing iteverywhere because when I was a
kid, I mean I knew I wanted togo to college.
(07:43):
I knew I needed to go tocollege and I knew I needed to
pay for it myself.
I didn't know how to do thatreally, and FFA gave me a
direction.
It gave me a way to do it.
But when I joined FFA, I thinkI only did it so I could meet
boys from other schools and itdidn't seem like I was doing
anything then.
That would have ripple effectsthrough my whole life.
Now I'm a middle-aged woman andI can look back and see a
(08:06):
direct line between that andwhere I am now.
But it just didn't seemremarkable then.
So I try to give as much backto FFA as I can.
In fact, the night I got sworninto Congress they said you have
about one or two minutes on thefloor to speak when you get
sworn in.
And my chief of staff keptsaying, do you want to write a
speech?
(08:26):
And I was like no, I kind ofknow what I want to say and it
was making him really nervous.
But what I did was quote partof the FFA creed.
I said I believe in the promiseof better days through better
ways, even as the better thingswe now enjoy have come to us
through the struggles of formeryears.
And that's how I feel aboutbeing in Congress.
I'm looking forward to havingbetter days in the future
(08:47):
because we can do things betterthan we're doing them now.
But I want to pay homage to thestruggles of former years.
We're standing on the shouldersof giants in this country and I
want to be respectful of that.
But I learned that from FFA andthe fun thing about bringing
that up the night I got sworn inthat I didn't anticipate is now
every member of Congress whowas involved in FFA in high
(09:08):
school has come and talked to meabout it and recited part of
the creed and talked about theirexperiences.
I think there are four membersof Congress who are state FFA
presidents and so they asked meif I was a state president.
I was not a state officer, Iwas barely a chapter officer.
I was never the president of myown chapter, but I was involved
in the club.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
So now you can say at Congress, like all those who
are in the Congress FFA club,we're going to go have lunch,
you know whatever.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
So we actually do have an FFA caucus and I did
join it yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
So talking about then what?
So just for listeners, what doyou do now?
Like, what are you doing nowfor people who don't know?
Speaker 2 (09:46):
I am a member of Congress.
I represent Utah's secondcongressional district.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
And did you?
Jumping to the third questionthen, and you kind of already
mentioned this, you go from atown of 100 to FFA, right To
college on an ag scholarship.
Yes, Did you see yourselfsitting in Congress?
Speaker 2 (10:10):
Not even a little bit .
When I was a student, I got aninternship with the NRCS, so I
was a soil conservationisttrainee with USDA and part of
that program was they were goingto offer me a full-time job
when I graduated.
And I graduated, they offeredme a job in Beaver.
I moved 50 miles up the freewayand settled in.
(10:33):
I had a federal retirement planand I liked the work and I kind
of thought that I would do thatuntil I retired or got married
and started having babies,whatever.
There were a couple ofdifferent ways I could see this
going, but never this direction.
This all sort of happenedslowly, one step at a time, over
the course of a lot of years.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
But I think when you end up places where you're meant
to be or want to be, or have apassion about, it feels kind of
surreal, right, yeah, oh,absolutely, and it's like wow,
I'm like this is where I need tobe, or you're really happy.
Is that how you feel now aboutCongress, or how are you doing
in Congress right now?
Speaker 2 (11:13):
Well, I have been in office for almost four months so
I don't know if I have any ideawhat's normal yet, and I'm
already running for reelection.
So most of the time I'm tired.
I'm working a lot of long hours, but it is surreal.
That night I got sworn in, wasone of those rare moments in
life that is just perfect.
I mean, it felt like somethingout of a Disney movie.
(11:35):
I had 200 friends and familymembers up in the gallery
cheering for me.
My parents were there, all ofmy siblings were there.
Yeah, it was really cool.
And John Curtis hosted areception for all of my guests
right afterward in Statuary Hallin the Capitol.
(11:57):
So my nieces and nephews wererunning around the United States
Capitol eating pizza and it wasjust unbelievable.
But it's also a lot of work.
So I came in in the middle of aCongress and I was immediately
in the middle of a stream ofwork, and it's a lot of work,
and I had to hire an entire newstaff and train them and then
file to run again and run acampaign while we were still
(12:19):
setting up the office.
And it's been the most workI've ever done in my life and
I'm a bit of a workaholic, butthis is more work than I've ever
done and it's been the mostwork I've ever done in my life.
And I'm a bit of a workaholic,but this is more work than I've
ever done and it's reallyenjoyable work most of the time.
But there are still momentswhen I think how in the world
did I get here and how am Igoing to make the most of this
opportunity?
Whatever time I'm in Congress, Iwant to make a mark, I want to
(12:42):
make things better than theywere before I got here.
And how am I going to do that?
And I don't get a lot of timeto stop and reflect on the big
picture like that, becausethere's always a list of tasks
in front of me that have to bedone quickly.
So just to fill in some of theholes in my story since we
started with that so I worked inBeaver for about 10 years for
NRCS and then I decided to go tolaw school.
(13:03):
I went to law school at BYU andwhen I graduated I got a job in
St George doing naturalresources law work.
So I was working for WashingtonCounty on their public lands
issues and water issues and itwas the stuff that I liked, the
stuff that kind of spurred me togo to law school in the first
place.
I wanted to be able to changepolicy.
(13:23):
There were policies that werejust stupid, that I didn't like
and I was tired of explainingthem and instead of explaining
policies, I wanted to makepolicies better and I thought
law school was probably a goodway to do it.
I didn't really know how I wasgoing to do it and I've been
really fortunate several timesin my life to just land in the
right place at the right time,and that was one of those
(13:45):
examples.
So I got to work on land policyand water policy and continue
helping farmers and ranchers.
That's what I liked doing atNRCS.
That's what I got to do againat Washington County.
I went to work for the UtahAssociation of Counties doing
public lands policy for all ofthe counties in the state.
I left both of those jobs to goto work for the Water
Conservancy District inWashington County and I'd been
(14:08):
there about five months whenChris Stewart, my congressman,
called and offered me a job.
He needed an attorney, heneeded somebody to do natural
resources, and so I went to workas his legal counsel handling
his natural resources issues.
And that was one of those pinchme kind of experiences where I
thought I can't believe he wasthe first congressman I ever met
and then I was working for himand I was working on policy.
(14:30):
That's what I had wanted to doand I thought this is the honor
of a lifetime to be able to workon federal policy.
I'm just a little girl from Hico, Nevada, who assumed I'd settle
down in a small town with afarm boy and raise a bunch of
kids.
And here I am, walking thehalls of Congress.
(14:51):
It was hard to believe I gotthat opportunity.
Congressman Stewart wasresigning.
He encouraged me to run and Ithought he was crazy at first,
but he said I think you'd besurprised how people would
respond to you if you'd get outthere and start talking to them,
(15:13):
Tell them what you've beendoing and how much you know and
how much you care.
And I wouldn't have done itwithout his encouragement and I
really appreciate him for that.
I heard a quote from AbrahamLincoln that he said any success
I have is because I have a dearfriend who believed in me and I
didn't have the heart to lethim down.
And I feel like that's my storytoo.
(15:34):
I had a dear friend my boss whobelieved in me and I didn't
have the heart to let him down.
So I went and ran and ranreally hard and ran a really
good grassroots campaign talkingto the people that I've been
working with for years and years, talking to local elected
officials and farmers andranchers and people who don't
always feel like they have avoice in Congress, people who
feel like policy happens to them, yeah, and so now I feel a huge
(16:00):
responsibility to make surethat I spend my time in Congress
really representing thosepeople, people who don't always
feel like Congress is listeningto them, people who feel like
they don't have a way to changepolicy, people who are just like
me and what I was yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
Well, I mean, historically, that's why we have
every breakfast shop in thenation is full on Saturday
morning, because that's wherefarmers get their anger out,
right, yeah.
Next question, and I think whensomeone is really busy, they
have.
Actually, I want to backtrackjust a little bit.
You said how you're working toget things done.
(16:37):
Right, like, you got to checkthose boxes off.
You got to get things done.
Something that I've become kindof a fan of saying to people,
because of the opportunity thatjust agriculture gives you and
the nature of your job gives you, is you can go from a person
who checks off boxes and likeeight to five, to a person who
(16:59):
is in charge of creating theboxes.
Right, and I mean, do you feelthat way in your job?
Like like, I think it's likethis higher calling right, like,
like everyone says, like theSpider-Man quote right Like, now
you have this greaterresponsibility but, I, think in
that it's kind of like you'regoing into the deep water.
You're like, ah, I don't know Am.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
I doing the right thing.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
What am I doing here?
But now, all of a sudden, youhave the opportunity to make
those boxes.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
Yeah, I get to make boxes.
I also still have to checkboxes.
So there are certain things Ihave to do.
I have to be in Washington DCwhen Congress is in session.
I have to vote when there's avote on the floor.
But in between the things Ihave to do, there are the things
I get to do, and that's whereit really matters who represents
you.
(17:45):
No matter who was in that seat,they would be voting and in
Utah we're a pretty red stateThey'd probably be voting pretty
conservative.
But what really separates areally good representative from
someone who's just putting intheir time is that box creating
that you just talked about.
It's the showing up here inUtah and talking to the people
(18:09):
who shower after work about whatthey need to be able to be
successful.
It's being part of the localcommunity and being plugged in
enough to know what people inUtah need from their
representatives.
So I talk all the time aboutsupporting local elected
(18:30):
officials and I'm a big believerin federalism.
I'm a big believer in separationof powers and I don't think
Congress should get involved intelling local governments how to
do their job.
But because we have so muchfederal regulation and because
we have so much federal land inUtah.
Our local governments aredealing with federal processes
all the time and a big part ofmy job is being there to help
(18:53):
them get through those processes.
But it'd be really easy to dothe job of a congresswoman
without spending so much time onthat.
So it's one of the things I'vereally focused on.
My staff knows I'm reallyfocused on it because those are
the boxes I can create.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
I kind of sit at home and I hope like and I hope like
you're talking about your FFAgroup.
Yeah, man, I hope those peopleare intermingling up there in
Washington.
I hope they're talking aboutjust where they come from and
what they do.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
Well, the good news is we do, yeah, interests
together, so that you'rebuilding relationships In a
legislative body.
You can't do anything on yourown.
You have to convince a majorityof people to vote for whatever
you're doing, and the best wayto be able to do that is to have
(19:41):
relationships with people sothat you can go sit down and
talk to them and have a level oftrust where you can explain.
This is why this is importantto my constituents.
This is why this thing thatmatters in Utah that doesn't
really happen in your state isimportant enough for you to go
vote on it and help us with aproblem we have.
And you're not going to getthere by being a jerk.
You're not going to get thereby treating other people badly,
(20:06):
yeah, or by giving a really good, persuasive speech.
It is a relationship driven townand you've got to be willing to
put in the time to buildrelationships with your peers,
and your staff has to be willingto build relationships with the
people around them.
It is the stuff you learned inkindergarten Don't push people,
don't call names, yeah, and Iknow that isn't how people view
(20:28):
Congress.
I know we look like the kidswho probably didn't do well in
kindergarten because all you seeis the yelling and the name
calling and the pushing.
But in order to get things doneyou've got to get past that.
The people who are mostnotorious for being difficult to
work with don't get much donefor their constituents because
nobody wants to help them withanything then in a person, in a
(20:50):
person who's in a position likeyou are, or really anybody.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
We have so much going on and so much to do, and all
these things that we work outfamily and personal life besides
all that.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Yep.
Well, you might have a familyand a personal life.
I am a workaholic and thatworks out well for my
constituents.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
Yeah, yeah, that's well.
My wife would disagree with youbecause she said I she's like
you know, a 40 hour week is athing, but I like this in 80
hours.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
but I like my job.
Yeah well, you're not on drugs,right?
Speaker 1 (21:21):
you don't have time to do that same yeah, um, I
firmly believe myself, uh, thatthere is something that everyone
has that is still like thatlast thing that you're thinking
about at night.
Yeah, do you have somethinglike that where?
Speaker 2 (21:40):
you're like this is my thing right now.
Yeah, my thing is did I doanything today to make Utah's
lives better?
And it's really easy to getcaught up all day on the to-do
list, and sometimes the thingson the to-do list are necessary,
and sometimes it's just busywork and when I'm crawling into
bed at night I think did I doanything today that makes my
constituents' lives better?
Because if I'm busy with ato-do list but my to-do list
(22:02):
isn't getting me there, thenI've got to change how I'm
spending my time.
What am I doing?
I don't know how long I'm goingto be in Congress.
I'm running for re-election nowby when.
I'm running for re-electionagain in two years, and so
there's no guarantee that I havea long runway on this.
So I've got to make sure thatI'm spending time every day
representing the people inUtah's second congressional
(22:24):
district, while trying to putthings in place that, even after
I'm gone, will keep makingUtah's lives better.
That's my last thing.
That's the thing that keeps meup at night.
It's the thing that wakes me upin a cold sweat in the morning.
It's the thing that motivatesme on the days where I'm tired
and I think I can't do.
Nine events today.
That's what keeps me going.
They've put their trust in me.
(22:45):
They've asked me to gorepresent them and make their
lives better and make thefederal government work better,
and and to to clear some ofthese hurdles, to get things
back in balance.
And that's what I've got tospend my time and my energy on.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
That's a that's a big job and it was just like you
were talking about, like a halfhour ago, the people, um, when,
when president Trump Trumpchanged the boundaries on that
national monument.
Two of them, two of them, yeah,and then they get changed back
again, yeah, and those are thekind of things where you're like
me as a person, as a citizen.
I'm just going like dude why.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
What are we doing here?
Speaker 1 (23:21):
And it doesn't seem like a lasting change and really
, from my perspective, itdoesn't seem like important
things are happening.
It feels like and I don't meanto make it sound like it's not
important it's just like this isgetting tossed around like a
softball and we have real issuesthat you know our ag people
need and our people in the citylimits need and you know we want
(23:42):
to see the lasting change,whatever the change is.
We want to see passion there.
Yeah, no-transcript.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
Presidents shouldn't do that and it should be a
decision that Congress makes.
Congress moves slowly.
Congress represents the peopleand so having those decisions go
through Congress means they'llhappen slower, they'll have more
buy-in and you won't get theback and forth back and forth.
So while the ping-ponging isfrustrating honestly for
(24:41):
everybody, nobody really lovesthat Hopefully, what we can get
out of it is a realization thatthere's a better way to do
things, and that's what I meanwhen I talk about better days.
Through better ways, we canidentify some of the things that
aren't working and get to workon systemic changes that make it
so that long-term, we're notmaking the same mistakes over
(25:01):
and over.
We're looking at the mistakes,identifying why we're making
them and then changing thesystem to address those mistakes
.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
I think the concern, or the thing that it makes me
think about, is like that's thepurpose of Congress, that should
things like that belong inCongress?
Because it's.
It's a.
You know, it takes some arguing, it takes some like to really
get a good solution.
It takes time.
But my concern is, like man,that's every time we're going
back and forth on that.
That's president's time.
We all we'd forth on that.
(25:32):
That's president's time.
We all talk about how busy weare, our schedules, and we're
wasting time doing this back andforth thing where your position
, Congress serves a greatpurpose and that's the kind of
thing that belongs in Congress,right?
Speaker 2 (25:42):
Well, and disagreement is a really good
thing and it's part of theprocess.
And in Congress we don't agreeon things very often.
So somebody has an idea andsomebody else comes in and
disagrees with that idea.
And then somebody else comes inand they agree with part of it,
but they want to see it amendedin this way and pretty soon
you've been through.
It's like a rock going througha tumbler right and you end up
(26:02):
with a smoother rock, a betterrock.
But when one person can just saythis is the idea and that's the
way we have to do it, you don'thave that chance for people to
disagree.
You don't have that chance totalk about what's wrong with the
original idea and how it couldbe made better.
And not every idea needs to beimplemented.
So one of the things thathappens in a deliberative body
like Congress is somebody comesup with an idea and other people
disagree with it and they justcan't convince enough people.
(26:25):
It's a good idea to get it done, that's a good thing, that's
part of the process.
But sometimes the kernel of agood idea is there, but it's
kind of wrapped in a lot of badidea and through that process
you knock a lot of the bad ideaoff.
The bad thing about adeliberative body is usually
nobody gets exactly what theywant.
The good thing is you usuallyend up with a better product
(26:45):
than you would if one personcould just impose their will on
everybody else.
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
I mean and I think that happens in any good process
right when you know, in anextension, I work with several
other ag agents who you know.
I may think something is areally good idea.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
Like well, hold on now, Ethan, like you might be
jumping the gun here a littlebit, and then I'm like, or how
are you going to pay for thisgood idea?
Speaker 2 (27:12):
It's a great idea.
But and I mean, history isreplete with examples of this
right when when one person canimpose their will on everybody
else, then they start havingreally bad ideas and nobody can
stop them.
Uh, we should all have someonein our lives who can stop us
from doing really stupid things,someone who can say, ah, that's
a bad idea, or you've got thebeginnings of a good idea, but
(27:33):
let's take it and make it better.
And so, as frustrating as it isto be one of 435 voting members
of Congress, it's also anopportunity to be one of those
polishers in that tumbler thathelps knock the edge off of
things and refine ideas untilthey are good for the American
people.
They are good for the people ofUtah.
(27:54):
But the thing that is beautifulabout the United States House of
Representatives is that wereally do represent a good
cross-section of the country.
You have farmers and doctorsand PhDs and retired military
and school teachers and smallbusiness owners all sitting on
the same committees talkingabout issues, and you get
(28:15):
multiple points of view frommultiple parts of the country,
from people who have totallydifferent life experiences, and
that's a good thing.
It's a slow thing, it's afrustrating thing, but it's
beautiful in its own way.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
Yeah, okay.
Last two questions, last lasttwo questions.
So let's see, this is myfavorite question.
Okay, I'm ready.
Are you happy?
Speaker 2 (28:42):
I am happy.
I'm tired.
If those of you who arelistening can't see me, I have
dark circles under my eyes, um,but I could not work this hard
at something that didn't make mehappy.
The idea that I can help fixsome of these problems lights me
up inside and gives me energythat I didn't even know I had,
and keeps me going On the harddays when I'm making hard
(29:04):
decisions or when we're just notgetting anywhere and it's
discouraging.
The thing that keeps me going isthat I am so blessed to have
the opportunity to be in theroom where it happens, so to
speak, and that you know, backto your Spider-Man quote I have
great power by being in thatroom, and with that comes a
(29:24):
great responsibility, and it'snot just some vague sense of
responsibility, it's a veryparticular responsibility.
I have a responsibility to makesure the people in Utah's
second congressional districtare well represented.
I have a responsibility to makesure people in Utah's second
congressional district arebetter off now than they were
before I got there, that theyhave the freedom to live their
(29:46):
lives, that they can raise theirkids, own their homes, retire
and be living the American dream, and that makes me happy.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
So I mean and it really you are.
I mean you have such a blessingto be able to like.
I mean you can look out thewindow in any one of these
cities and be like these are mypeople.
Yeah, these are my chief.
My people the flock'm takingcare of whatever you want to
call it.
Yeah, you know, at the end ofthe day, that is your
responsibility, and I thinkthat's such an awesome thing,
(30:17):
because there's a lot of peoplethat like, just depend on you.
They hope you're doing a goodjob.
They really hope that theprocess works.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
And to that end, I have made it a goal to set a
whole new standard for what itmeans to be accountable and
transparent with my constituents.
I go on local radio as often asI can.
I put out a newsletter.
I show up at as many events asI can.
I talk to the local paperswhenever I can, because I want
people to know what I'm doingwith my time, how I'm handling
(30:50):
that responsibility.
There are days that thatresponsibility is sort of
crushing, but one thing I alwaystry to do is make sure that my
constituents know what I'm doing, how I'm doing it and how it
impacts them.
Even when I know they disagreewith me, even when I know
they're not going to likeeverything I'm doing, I know
it's my responsibility to makesure they know what I'm doing.
(31:11):
The other thing I appreciateabout your podcast is that it's
a chance for people to get toknow who I am.
A lot of the communication Ihave with people is in a really
short form, where I'm talkingabout a specific issue and they
hear where I am on the issue.
But I like that whoever listensto this podcast will get to
know a little bit of who I am,what motivates me, where I come
from, and I think that'simportant too.
(31:32):
If I'm going to representpeople, then it helps if they
kind of have a sense of who I am, what my brand is, so to speak.
Yeah, so thank you for givingme an opportunity to share that,
and I just want to say I talkedat the beginning about how I
grew up and had this happychildhood, and I didn't know how
unique my childhood was.
I was surrounded by otherpeople who were like me, and so
(31:54):
I thought that was more normalthan it was, and I suspect
that's true of most people whoare involved in agriculture.
They're around other peopleinvolved in agriculture and they
think that their perspectiveand their lifestyle is more
common than it is.
It's unique, and we need thosevoices involved in public
discourse.
People who are producing food,feed, fiber for a living, people
(32:18):
who are involved in blue-collartrades, people who are working
with their hands and involved intheir communities and living a
rural lifestyle, have a reallyunique perspective on our nation
and the role of government andwhat policy should be.
And I just want to end with aplea to get involved.
(32:40):
Get involved in politics, getinvolved in the schools, get
involved in your communities atwhatever level you feel
comfortable, because your voiceis more unique than you think it
is and people need to hear fromyou.
They need, as part of thatrefining process, we need unique
voices to get involved, becausewhen we disagree, when we have
multiple points of view, we endup with a better product.
(33:01):
We end up with a better policy.
We end up better off as apeople.
So don't be hesitant to getinvolved.
Don't think that everyonearound you is just like you.
Go out there and use your voiceand your platform to advocate
for the things that areimportant to you.
Speaker 1 (33:14):
And that's that's thank you.
And I want to take a sec justtip my hat to, I mean, your mom
and your dad, but especiallyyour mom, because you said
something at the beginning thatI caught, where you said I
didn't realize my mom was abusiness owner.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
That is so.
I don't know, I don't even knowhow to say it, but I can see
when you talk about it.
I can see, when you mentionedthat, that that's important to
you.
That's something I'm proudabout.
Your mom and you're proud ofyour parents yeah, and they did
such a wonderful job in justgiving you the opportunities
that you needed, yes, to bewhere you are today.
Speaker 2 (33:52):
And giving me the confidence that was required to
take some of the risks I'vetaken.
My parents are wonderful.
I'm really grateful for them,and I probably don't tell them
that as often as I should, soI'm going to say it here, and
then I'll let them listen to thepodcast.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
Yes, now this is the break the ice question, so we'll
spray the splices somewhere.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
My wife said, Ethan, when you're talking to her, you
need to break the ice.
You need to ask her somethingthat no one else will ask her.
Okay, my wife has two veryawesome questions that she asks
everyone.
She means the first one is andyou can pick one or do both.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
If you could go back to any event in time, where
would you go to witness anyevent?
Some people pick a lot of thesame ones.
If it was some event where youwere like man, I wish I could
have just been a fly on the wall.
And then the other one is youcould pick anyone to have a
dinner with, living or not.
(34:42):
Who would you want to havedinner?
Speaker 2 (34:43):
with.
Okay, I'm going to answer thequestion of if I could pick
anyone to have dinner with.
Who would it be?
And it's probably a boringanswer to anyone who's not me.
I would go back and have dinnerwith my own grandma.
My maternal grandma lived withus when I was in high school.
She and I were roommates.
We shared bunk beds and weactually even worked at the same
truck stop.
We spent quite a bit of timetogether, yeah, but I was a
(35:06):
teenager and I wasn't as curiousabout her life as I wish I had
been, and she passed away nottoo long after I graduated from
college and now I have so manyquestions.
She lived a really unique lifeand I think she didn't have an
easy life.
She was an orphan by the timeshe was 11.
And she had my dad when she wasreally young and she had a lot
(35:29):
of hardship to overcome in herlife and I knew her as a grandma
and I wish I had been morecurious about things that
happened to her when she wasyounger.
And so if I could have dinnerwith anybody, it would be my
grandma and ask her all thequestions that I didn't ask.
Now my other grandma is stillalive and one of my best friends
(35:49):
, and because of that I've askedmy living grandma, my maternal
grandma, all kinds of questionsthat sometimes she gets tired of
having to answer for me.
But I know now that there's atime clock on the opportunity to
ask those questions, that Idon't want to regret later that
I wasn't curious enough about myown grandma, so that's the
person I would have dinner withif I could have dinner with
(36:11):
anybody Wow.
Speaker 1 (36:12):
Well, keep your journal, because someone's going
to want that from you too.
Speaker 2 (36:15):
You know, congressman Stewart has been telling me to
keep a journal.
I did for a while in juniorhigh and I went back and read it
and I was so embarrassed by thethings I wrote that I burned it
.
So I've struggled my whole lifeto keep a journal, and I should
have.
There've been so many thingsthat I would like to go back and
read about now.
But what I am doing is keepinga gratitude journal, so every
(36:36):
night I write down one thing I'mthankful for, and even that is
a little bit of a record ofwhat's happening in my life
without having to invest a tonof time.
Speaker 1 (36:44):
Yeah, my wife busy mom.
She had a journal that hermother gave her.
That was the.
It was called the one line aday.
Yeah, she just wrote down onething a day.
That happened after she became,after we had our first child,
and she loved that Such a greatidea.
I will tell you this.
So my, my great grandma passedum last summer, on the 4th of
(37:07):
July.
She was 107 years old.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
Wow, that's remarkable.
Speaker 1 (37:12):
And she kept a journal, and I'm not kidding you
, she kept a journal forprobably 80 years and we have
them and they are so magnificent.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
Yeah, what a precious gift.
Speaker 1 (37:23):
Wow, when my dad called her, or my brother was
born and he was sick and he, hecalled my great grandma, you
know, and it's stuff that I justdon't know.
Yeah, so yeah, that thathistory.
I mean that's the purpose ofthis podcast, right when you
come from, and keep that aliveso other people can, like you
said, have the perspective oflike man.
I'm growing up in the middle ofKenosh, Utah, but I'm a
(37:48):
valuable asset and I am beingshaped for a reason and I don't
know where I'm going to end up,but I have a perspective that no
one else has.
Speaker 2 (37:57):
And it's interesting to look back and see what you
thought you were going to doversus what you did.
And I know I'm a totalhypocrite on this one, because
when I was in high school I usedto go over and read to my
neighbor across the street.
She had macular degenerationand was nearing 90 years old and
had kept a journal her wholelife and thought that when she
was an old lady she would goback and read her journals.
(38:19):
But she couldn't read and so Iwould go read them aloud to her
and I was absolutely fascinatedby the things in her journal.
She was on a mission in Hawaiiwhen Pearl Harbor got bombed.
She remembered the Hoover Dambeing built.
She lived in a tent house.
She lived in a house theyordered from Sears Roebuck, and
just the details she wrote abouther day-to-day life were so
fascinating to me severaldecades later, and yet I don't
(38:40):
keep a journal.
Speaker 1 (38:41):
So then you said also we were standing on the
shoulders of giants built thiscountry.
And I can look back in I thinka lot of us can in our own
family history, especially outhere in the West where we go.
You look out that door andyou're like this place must have
sucked to look at in 1830.
Speaker 2 (38:59):
How did they see the potential in this before air
conditioning?
Speaker 1 (39:02):
They did it before these nice gas vehicles yeah.
Speaker 2 (39:07):
Yeah, so you.
So, dear listener, don't belike me Keep a journal.
Speaker 1 (39:14):
Yeah, yes, exactly, we are teaching Celeste right
now.
She needs to keep a record forall of us.
You're right, you're right,anyway.
Well, thank you so much.
Thank you, you're right, you'reright, anyway.
Well, thank you so much.
Thank you, and please, peoplelisten to this and apply it,
because a lot of us in ag don'tgive ourselves enough credit to
think that we can make adifference or be somewhere where
(39:36):
we can have a strong opinion,and Celeste is our living
opportunity to witness thatright now.
So, thank you.
Speaker 2 (39:43):
Thank you you.
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