AARON'S STORY (CONTINUED)

Every local government official he spoke to told Aaron the race was over at that point. But Aaron believes where there’s a will there’s a way. So he decided to run as a write-in candidate. All the powers-that-be in Peoria were amused but gave him no chance of succeeding.

Aaron began working hard and assembled an army of volunteers. He handmade his door hangers that described what voters had to do to write in a candidate’s name on their ballot. He and his volunteers knocked on 13,000 doors and ended up getting 6,406 successful write-in votes. He defeated the president of the school board with 60% of the vote. Aaron Schock became a school board member of one of the largest school systems in Illinois at age 19.

Aaron Schock was so diligent in his work on the school board that his school board colleagues voted to make him vice president of the board when he was 22 years old. At age 23, they unanimously voted to make him school board president.  The Peoria Journal Star newspaper lauded Schock’s work on the school board when he left after four years and said, “Schock left a mature record.”

During his term on the school board, Schock became concerned about his state representative, Ricca Slone. 

The school board had held meetings with area legislators to discuss state funding and regulations. While six area legislators attended the meetings, the one who represented most of the Peoria School District did not—Ricca Slone. She refused every attempt by the school district to meet with legislators. 

Schock and some of his school board colleagues went to Springfield to meet with officials. They met with the Lt. Governor, the Secretary of State, State Senators and State Representatives, but Representative Ricca Slone again declined to meet with them.

That prompted Schock to look closely at her voting record. He found that she was one of the most liberal representatives in the state and voted for many bills that impaired the ability of employers in Illinois to continue to do business here.

Rep. Slone was an eight-year incumbent in a district that routinely gives Democrats 60% of the vote. Nevertheless, at age 22, Aaron Schock decided to challenge her to work to make Illinois a better place to do business.

Once again, the conventional wisdom had it that Schock was on a fool’s errand and it would be impossible for him to win. He was “too young” and the district was “too Democrat for a Republican to win.”