MANKATO, Minn. (AP) — Jacob Reitan said he told Gwen Walz he was gay before telling his parents.
In 1999, Reitan was a student at Mankato West High School in Minnesota, where Walz and her husband, Tim, were teachers. In her classroom at the beginning of his sophomore year, Gwen Walz had explained that her class was a safe and sound place for gay students.
“I had never heard a teacher speak about gay issues in front of the class,” recalls Reitan, now a 42-year-old lawyer from Minneapolis. “This act meant everything to me. I felt welcome in the place where I was supposed to be learning.”
Gwen Walz’s unwavering support was also shared by her husband, who moved to Minnesota from rural Nebraska long before the Democrat became a congresswoman, governor and vice president. Kamala Harris chose her as her running mate for the 2024 presidential race.
Reitan approached Tim Walz about starting a Gay-Straight Alliance at the high school. The support of the football team’s defensive coordinator – a straight, married man and Army National Guard soldier – gave the plan a boost.
Walz, a world geography teacher, offered to advise the group. That was critical, Reitan said, for a adolescent man whose car windows had been smashed and whose driveway had been vandalized with a homophobic slogan.
However, he said Walz treats all students this way.
“He had the ability to talk about bullying issues in a way that helped both the bully and the bully,” Reitan said. “He made it clear that bullying has no purpose. It doesn’t help anyone. And it made school safer for me.”
When Harris introduced Walz as her running mate, she told that story. But Walz’s commitment to the LGBTQ community has not been met with universal approval in the days since he joined the race. Some Republican elected officials and conservative commentators have cited Walz’s opposition to banning gender-affirming care for minors as evidence that he is too liberal to be vice president.
Tiffany Justice of Moms for Liberty, a parents’ rights group that advocates for limiting the discussion of LGBTQ issues in schools, recently claimed in an interview with Fox News that Walz was “the most anti-parent candidate Kamala Harris could have elected.”
His approach stands in acute contrast to policies in states such as Florida, Alabama and Iowa that restrict open discussions about sexual orientation and gender identity in schools.
Reitan said the school administration supported the formation of the club and there was surprisingly little pushback. A few parents called and threatened to keep their children home from class, but the principal at the time simply responded that the school would mark those students as absent.
Such criticism is scarce among those who have spoken publicly about their experiences with Walz at Mankato West. Former students say Walz’s classes felt like a bridge to the wider world.
“He made the world seem smaller and more accessible,” said Nicole Griensewic, a student in Walz’s geography class. “And so he talked about China as if it were not so far away and not so foreign.”
Griensewic’s brother was bullied, she said, but he felt so comfortable with Tim and Gwen Walz that he accompanied them on an educational trip to China with other students.
“I dare say there’s a lot of toxic masculinity in the whole football game,” she said. “And to see someone who was a football coach, but at the same time say, ‘Hey, we’re going to respect everybody. And there’s no way I’m going to put up with any of that crap.’ That was really brave.”
Adam Segar said Walz found a place for him on the football team despite weight and muscle-building issues. Segar said this approach is common at Walz – he tries to make sure student-athletes who don’t fit a conventional mold also find a place.
“I think that’s what Tim brought to small town America, a willingness to be open-minded and to demand that students be open-minded, too,” Segar said.
Ann Vote remembers Walz as an outgoing person who was passionate about not only teaching children but also learning from them. He supported her vision of a unique prom theme that was not included in the school supplier’s pre-made prom packages and required that almost all of the decorations be made by hand.
The theme was “In Our Wildest Dreams,” which, Vote joked, seemed to anticipate Walz’s career path.
As he stepped in to teach one of her classes, he showed a video that he kept pausing to excitedly explain different elements of it.
“He was just so passionate and committed to what we were learning at a time when a lot of teachers were turning on videos to take a break,” said Vote, who worked as a social studies teacher for 12 years before becoming a motivational speaker. “Many of us at that school went on to become teachers.”
The current principal, Sherri Blasing, did not teach with Walz, but she and her family lived next door to him for 22 years. When Blasing’s four children became teenagers, her family lacked transportation. Walz gave them an vintage Buick they named “Laverne,” which she said was a testament to Walz’s generosity.
“With Tim, you always see this common theme,” said Blasing, “that he values each person for who they are and that he does everything he can to help them become the best they can be.”
John Considine, an offensive lineman on the school’s 1999 state championship team, had Walz in geography class. Considine often cut his lunch break low to arrive early so the two could talk.
In the delayed 1990s, before cell phones permeated campus life, Walz invented phrases that some students called “Mr. Walz-isms.”
One such Mr. Walz-ism that stuck in Considine’s mind was “11 to the ball.” The phrase called for the unity of all 11 players on the football field.
Pat Ryan met Walz as a colleague while teaching speech and drama. Ryan was involved in a faculty prank on the newly hired Walz that didn’t quite go according to plan. Thanksgiving was coming up and the veteran teachers gave Walz a seemingly coupon for a free turkey from a local grocery store.
The certificate was a imitation, and the teachers were waiting outside the store, ready to make fun of Walz.
Instead, Walz left the store with a free turkey. He said that was how Walz was able to win people over.
“That’s how charming he is,” Ryan said. “It’ll be hard to find someone who knows him and doesn’t like him.”
For Reitan, the connection was more personal. But he believes that everything he knows about Walz is transferable to the world of politics.
“He’s so authentic. He is exactly what he seems to be,” Reitan said. “Tim Walz understands that it’s OK to be different. Being different is part of diversity in the schoolyard and in the classroom, but it’s also part of the diversity of our nation.”
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Beck reported from Omaha, Nebraska.
