By Jerry Curry, Staff Writer
United States Congresswoman Erin Houchin, representing Indiana’s 9th District, took time out of her busy schedule to give Salem High School’s “Jobs for American Graduates” (JAG) members a brief overview of her past careers. She spoke to about 120 students on Tuesday, Sept. 3. The majority of the students are in the JAG program.
Tara Kritzer is a teacher and coordinator of the program. Also on hand was the JAG regional manager Jeff Hester.
Houchin started out saying that her dad was a dentist, and they lived in Scottsburg. Her dad was a good example, as he worked his way through dentistry school.
She added, “I had no interest in politics until I reached college.”
While attending I.U. and working on a degree in Psychology, she applied for a job in the state senate. This meant she had to leave school just six credits short of compleing her degree.
Later she received a job offer to be a legislative assistant. She held that job for eight years.
She said the employer fired one employee a month. This ruined her fondness of politics. She moved back to Scottsburg and drove to I.U. Bloomington to finish her degree. She only lacked two classes for six hours of credit.
She then got married and now has three children, ages 20, 18, and 15.
Early in her marriage to her husband Dustin Houchin and nine months pregnant, she got a job offer from U.S. Senator Dan Coats. He offered her a job as Southeast Indiana Regional Manager. That job encompassed 24 counties. She was the first female and first intern to get this job.
She then started a public relations company and worked at that a while.
Houchin then ran and was reelected to the Indiana State Senate. In 2016, she defeated a powerful 26-year incumbent that she had worked for until 2022.
She represented the 47th District in the Indiana Senate from 2014 to 2022.
She stated, “I saw lots of good you get to do.”
Then she ran for a seat in the United States House of Representatives for Indiana’s 9th District. She was elected in 2022 and continues to represent those constituents.
One enjoyable project Houchin pursued was the robot, Milo. She worked on getting Milo while in the state senate. Milo was a robot that worked with autistic kids. The theory was the children would be more prone to work and talk to the robot than to other people.
When asked about jobs of the future, she stressed the importance of trying to get a job that you are passionate about. Jobs in the future will deal with AI, advanced manufacturing, and general skills.
She opened the end of her discussion for questions from the students.
One question was,” How much do you make?” She answered $174,000 a year. Other questions dealt with how do you handle hate, do you have any helpers, how divided is politics? On the last question she said, “It’s not as bad as you think. There’s a lot of laws that are made”.
On an age-limit question, she said, “No age limit on the supreme court.” SalemLeader.com enquired about her future political aspirations; she replied she may pursue other endeavors if there was a need.
Houchin closed by saying, “Do the best job you can.”
Houchin serves on the following committees in her present position— Committee on Education, Committee on Financial Services, and Committee on House Rules. She was a very articulate speaker.
She lives in Salem. Her son is a student at Salem High School.