Sixth Congressional District Primary Interviews: Chris Preece
Part one of our four-piece series getting to know the Democratic candidates hoping to unseat Rep. Andy Barr.
The first time I encountered Chris Preece, he was chatting with the owner of a local party store inside the Richmond Mall, smiling and shaking hands with customers among the pastel balloon arches and dinosaur-shaped sunglasses. The conversation seemed so unassuming and, well, genuine that I never would’ve thought he was running in the Democratic primary for the Sixth Congressional District, working toward the opportunity to (potentially) unseat Republican Representative Andy Barr in the fall. He didn’t seem like a politician, and as I learned a few moments later when he approached my family with a copy of the STEM-and-election-themed comic book he’d made, it’s because he truly is a fresh face in a political scene that can often feel like a revolving door.
A Martin County native and public school science teacher currently living and working Berea, learn more about Preece below in part one of our interview. (And don’t forget: May 17 is primary election day! Tell your book club! Remind your mamaw!)
(Photo via Chris Preece for Congress)
Sarah Baird: Is running for public office something that was always a personal aspiration or was there a specific event that inspired you?
Chris Preece: Running for office was not in my foreseeable future, but there have been a culmination of events, really, that made me decide to do it. The first one was January 6 [2021] happening. I was actually in the middle of teaching over Zoom, sitting in my living room, and my uncle texts me and he’s like, “You have to turn on the TV right now.” I turned on the TV, and seeing domestic terrorists attack our Capitol just shocked me to my core. That's not something I could shake. I sat back and I thought: Where do we go from here and what do we do? How do we come back from something like this before it goes too far…if it hasn't gone too far already? Who knows, but hopefully we can dial it back some.
Another part of it was at the start of the pandemic, when schools shut down, we had a nonprofit startup in the school providing food for kids who weren't getting school lunches anymore. It’s called Berea Kids Eat. And even early on in the pandemic, when we weren't quite sure about how things were spreading and all that, my wife and I volunteered to work there, so we could get food out to people who were food insecure. Just seeing the sheer number of people who were dealing with having a lack of food in their home. I mean, we've been reading for years the statistics on how many people are living paycheck to paycheck, but [volunteering] took it from numbers to reality for me to feel it and see it.
And then there’s all the anti-science stuff that's being spewed within politics by people who are supposed to be our leaders. The pandemic should be a time where we're coming together and trying to help one another out, not coughing in people’s faces because you don't think the mask rules are necessary.
SB: You’re an educator. Tell me a little bit about how you would approach addressing inequities in rural education across the region differently than Rep. Barr?
CP: I grew up in Martin County and graduated with 120 or so people, I believe. The school that I teach at now, Berea Community, has about a hundred kids who graduate each year, give or take some. When you're dealing with smaller schools, they typically don't have the resources that the bigger schools have because the bigger schools are getting more money overall and are able to spread out some of the resources and provide opportunities for the kids because they have more students.
We don't have a whole lot of extracurriculars where I’m teaching at now. We're able to supply the basics and a little bit extra…but not much. In Martin County, it was pretty much the same. We were able to have the basics, a few things here and there, but that's about it. We really need to invest in education up and down the board, pre-K through college and trade schools. When it comes to pre-K through high school, especially in rural communities, that is key for kids' long term success and being able to help and engage them early.
I could go on for days about education, but just to hit on a couple of other major points: When it comes to college, we're asking kids to pay way too much. When my uncle was going into college in the mid-1980s, he told me that he was able to work a summer job full-time and pay all of his college for the year. We’ve got to get back to something more along the lines of that rather than people being strapped with debt for most of the rest of their lives.
Secondly, a lot of kids feel this way—and I felt this way in high school—like they’re being pushed toward college, and if they don't go to college, then they don't have the opportunity to have a decent job or to make decent money after they graduate. We've got to stop that. I mean, we need people in trades. We need plumbers and electricians and HVAC folks. There's no shame in any work like that. So, we've got to change how we approach things a little bit and make sure that all kids feel valued, no matter what kind of profession that they're wanting to pursue. Because at the end of the day, we're all valued, we're all needed. Whether you're a teacher, a janitor, a heart doctor or whatever, we're all needed.
SB: Do you support universal pre-K for three and four-year-olds?
CP: I do support that, yes. I think that is a good idea to offer to folks. Having the opportunity to do that would be wonderful and be able to help kids out as they grow. Considering how we run schools currently, I do think that we need to step back and think a little bit differently about the structure of the schools currently because it is a very old system. We've got a fair amount of educational knowledge, and we need to restructure how we do things.
SB: Running for office is becoming increasingly difficult if you’re not incredibly well funded, and a particular struggle if you’re a younger candidate. What sort of advantages do you bring to the table as a young person?
CP: Well, I'm still teaching full time right now. I'm still working full time. It is very challenging running for office. If I were a wealthy person and I could just shove in $30,000 of my own money to salary some people, to get the ball rolling, that would've been a hundred times easier than what it's been for me. Because right now, I'm fighting and scrapping every little bit, pinching every penny I can possibly pinch and trying to think of the most creative ways that I can meet people where they are, find volunteers and rub elbows with some wealthy people. Coming from my background, I don't know that many wealthy people. I grew up in Martin County. There's a few wealthy people that live there, but I don't know any of them. And then being in the education field, typically people who go into education aren't wealthy. Just seeing the system for what it is, there's no wonder that it has become so corrupted, with people who are just wealthy, and then vote for the wealthy, because it just perpetuates itself. It's sickening.
I mean Barr is an institutionalized career politician. I will give him some credit, that from the people I've talked to, I don't think that he went into the position to be as polarizing and to be as, well, institutionalized as he has become. But he has stopped acknowledging and really voting for regular folks. When it comes to being a leader, he's not a leader. He's written three bills in 10 years. Those three bills haven't helped anybody. One was to rename the Lexington V.A. hospital. The other was to make a commemorative coin. And the third was to change some credit hour requirements in a scholarship program. We have far bigger problems that need to be addressed. He's not addressing them.
To be continued…
We’ll be back tomorrow with part two of our conversation with Preece, then shifting gears Sunday and Monday when we’ll chat with his primary opponent, perennial candidate Geoff Young. Want to help a friend know who to back this primary season? Consider sending a gift subscription: