Becky Kroll was born and raised in Lohman, Missouri, and still lives in the same house she grew up in, on the last acre of what was once her family's dairy farm. Today, she works full time and helps care for her mom. She understands what it means to balance work and family while watching groceries, utilities, healthcare, and just about everything else take a bigger bite out of the paycheck.
Becky is a graduate of Lincoln University, where she earned a degree in history with a minor in elementary education. She has also lived and worked in different parts of Missouri, including St. Louis, Dexter, and Cape Girardeau, before coming back home when her family needed her.
Her working life has been just as varied. Becky has worked in grocery stores and warehouses, managed a video store, and spent years managing a restaurant. She has hired people, trained employees, built schedules, dealt with budgets, solved problems, calmed down angry customers, and learned that sometimes you simply have to figure out how to get the job done with the people and resources you have.
She also comes from a working family. Her father was a union carpenter, and her family includes generations of people who worked with their hands, raised families, and understood that looking out for your neighbors wasn't something you talked about. It was simply what you did.
That is still how Becky looks at problems today.
She often says there are two kinds of people: the people who point at a problem and the people who pick up a tool and try to fix it.
For years, Becky was willing to pick up the tool without having her name on a ballot. She wrote letters to the editor, attended events and rallies, showed up at the Capitol, testified before legislative committees, and spoke up when she believed ordinary Missourians weren't being heard.
Eventually, showing up meant being willing to do something bigger.
It meant running.
Becky believes most Missourians have far more in common than our politics sometimes allows us to admit. We want good schools for our kids. We want to be able to see a doctor when we're sick. We want safe communities, decent roads, good jobs, affordable homes, and enough money left after paying the bills to actually enjoy the life we're working so hard to build.
We may disagree about how we get there.
That's okay.
Becky doesn't believe representation requires everyone to agree with her. It requires her to listen, ask questions, find common ground where it exists, and be willing to say no when something isn't right for the people she represents.
The decisions made in Jefferson City eventually make their way into someone's kitchen, paycheck, classroom, farm, business, or doctor's office. Becky believes the people making those decisions should never forget the people who have to live with them.
She also believes the voice of Missouri voters matters. When Missourians make a decision at the ballot box, their government should respect it. Trust isn't built by telling people their vote matters and then looking for ways around it when we don't like the answer.
Becky is running for Missouri House District 59 because she believes this district deserves a representative who will show up, do the homework, ask the questions, and remember who sent her there.
She isn't running to represent a political party.
She's running to represent her neighbors.
