When Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz takes center stage tonight at the Democratic National Convention, some of his former students will be watching at the school where he once taught them.
They will be part of a watch party at 7:30 p.m. at Mankato West High School to watch Walz as he speaks at the convention in Chicago, the campaign said in a news release.
Walz is scheduled to formally accept the Democratic Party’s nomination for vice president on Wednesday. Walz has been on a dizzying ascent since Kamala Harris picked the former Mankato geography teacher and football coach as her running mate.
One of his former students, Blake Frink, plans to speak at the watch party.
“I want to tell people that my experience with him really inspired me to go on and be a teacher myself,” said Frink, 41, who had Walz as a geography teacher in 1999.
Walz was not political as a teacher, and students didn’t know whether he was a Democrat or a Republican before he ran for office, Frink said.
He said Walz would talk about his trips to China and how his service in the military as an artilleryman gave him hearing problems.
Republicans recently launched a probe on Walz’s trips on China and have attacked how Walz has characterized his military service, which the governor has defended on campaign trail.