A former Panora resident who now lives in West Des Moines has announced his plans to run for Iowa’s 3rd Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Monte Shaw is hoping to get the Republican nomination for the seat. He currently serves as the executive director for the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association and though he has never been elected to public office, Shaw has worked on several campaigns over the past few decades.

“When this opportunity came along, some folks said ‘Monte, you’d be good, you should do that’ and I kind of laughed at first” says Shaw. “Then my wife and I talked about it. My wife Tina and we have two kids, and we looked at them and looked at the amount of debt that’s going to be piled on them and we thought ‘Gee when they’re 20, 25 years old think of the amount of taxes they’re going to have to pay, just to pay the interest on the debt, let alone have the government actually do anything for them.’ And I just think that that’s unwise, it’s unfair and quite frankly it borders on immoral. So we decided that we need to step up and put the skill set that I’ve developed over the last 20 years of advocating for Iowa to work.”

For more with Shaw, tune into today’s Let’s Talk Dallas County on AM 1310 KDLS during the 9am, noon and 5pm hours.