By: JOHNNIE KELLER
I am running for Salina City Commission because, like so many of the people I have had the pleasure of speaking with have said to me: The citizens (as a whole) as I am, are tired of what appears to be wasteful spending, lack of transparency and the citizens’ voices not being heard. Many in our community feel that the current commissioners listen more to the city department heads instead of the citizens that elected them.
I was born, raised and educated in Kansas and I am a fourth generation Kansan. After graduating from high school in 1978, I enlisted in the military. I served 25 years in total in the Army, Army Reserve and Air National Guard, with just over 20 years of active service. I served in Germany, Denmark, Korea, Saudi Arabia and numerous stateside assignments. I retired from Smoky Hill ANG range serving as the Assistant Operations and the Flight Scheduler. The many additional duties that I had were Airspace manager, Trainer and Mobilization Sergeant for the Range. I retired in January 2005 and I received a second Meritorious Service Medal.
After retiring from the military, I worked for KDOT as an equipment operator for a short time before going to work for the Railroad as a rail car repairer and worked as a outbound air test and train inspector at Herington, KS.
I decided to return to formal education the fall of 2006 and quit the railroad, working as a welder/fabricator while attending college full time. I received my BS in Management and Ethics from Manhattan Christian College July 2008. After finishing college, I worked at Fort Riley at the airfield as an airfield operations specialist. Then I worked at the Fort Riley railhead teaching rail loading and aircraft pallet loading to soldiers and DOD civilians until I returned to railroading. This time, I worked as a conductor and engineer until 2014 when an injury ended my railroading career.
After recovering from my injury, I visited Salina Area Technical College to see about taking classes and was asked to apply for a Welding Instructor position for the night welding program. I was hired and started work for SATC and worked for three years until the night welding program was terminated. I then went to work for a private railcar repair facility in the Inbound Inspector and job estimator department. While in that position I worked with the Quality Assurance manager and customer service manager. I missed teaching and found a position with Hutchinson Community College and worked for HCC from Aug 2017 until my retirement in 2022. While working in that position, I put together a welding program at the Hillsboro, KS facility that took it from 12 students from three separate area high schools to 25 students a day from six different area high schools.
In those five years I worked with the local industries to ensure that our curriculum was not only in line with state requirements but also met the American Welding Society universal standards.
During my five years at HCC, I sent teams to NCK welding competition four times, winning first, second and third place team finishes. I worked with our grant writers to get grants for our program to purchase the latest equipment that industry used in manufacturing.
I retired from working full time in July 2022 and shortly afterward started working with assisting local veterans with VA assistance. As a result of that work, we have started the Salina Area Veterans Assistance Group and to date have helped over 100 local veterans and families of veterans receive some type of assistance.
I am married to the former Sally S. Lai of Hong Kong, and we have three children and 10 grandchildren between us.
I am a lifetime member of the National Rifle Association and a member of the Gun Owners of America.
I enjoy spending time with family, fishing and traveling around our country seeing the greatness of Kansas and the United States.
If I am elected, I will work hard to make sure that our city government is transparent and accountable to our citizens. I will work with our city manager to ensure that all city departments will do all that they can to work with small business owners. I will not forget that as a commissioner I work for the citizens, and the city manager works for city commission.