On the final stretch of her 2022 campaign, Christina Bohannan makes a visit to City High to answer students’ questions during lunch.

Bohannan began speaking to students about her journey to politics with an anecdote about her daughter, City High alumni, and former Little Hawk reporter Mira Bohannan-Kumar ‘20, who strongly encouraged her mother to take action on climate change in her campaign for congress.

“We have to take action on climate change. It’s a really great opportunity for Iowa and for young people in Iowa to be part of because we get a lot of our energy in Iowa from renewable sources where we can reduce our carbon footprint. Great jobs in energy are just waiting for our young people so that we can invest back into Iowa and actually be part of the solution to climate change,” Bohannan said.

Bohannan points out the concerning rate at which Iowa students are taking their talent elsewhere.

“We have so many good talented students here in the state but we’re losing a lot of them. The way I think about it is if you guys want to go and see some other place and live in another state, that’s your choice, right? We aren’t trying to trap anybody, but I want to make this a good place that people want to stay. I want young people to be thinking about ‘Hey, you know, I could stay here and this is the place I might want to live,’ especially if their families are here,” Bohannan said.

The affordability of both healthcare and college is something Bohannan stresses on her campaign, her own father getting very sick and no longer being able to work, therefore ceasing to receive health insurance. She reports that she would not have been able to afford to attend college if the cost of college was what it is now.

“I want to make college more affordable, but also not just college, things like skills training. For example becoming welders or machine operators or carpenters or whatever it is that we need to open up opportunities for people,” Bohannan said.