Tom Kelly, Representative from House District 30, is running for Wyoming Superintendent of Public Instruction. I had the opportunity to speak with him and hear how a teacher from Chicago, Illinois ended up in Sheridan, Wyoming running for the state’s top educator. 

Representative Kelly, currently the chairman of the Department of Political and Military Science at American Military University, has been a lifelong educator, working as a public school teacher in the suburbs of Chicago. He taught social studies, government, and history as well as special education.  

By 2008, he and his wife, Gina, decided that Illinois was no longer a good place to raise a family, so they moved to Colorado. He started working at AMU as a paraeducator and then as an associate professor. In 2010, he earned a PhD in Political Science with a double major: American Government and Urban Politics. 

Two years later, in 2012, their daughter was diagnosed with leukemia. As she was going through chemotherapy, their 6th child, a son, was born with Down Syndrome and a hole in his heart that required surgery. Tom said they were living a Covid lifestyle before Covid was even a thing – wearing masks and doing all they could to get their children healthy. 

The following year, the kids had recovered and were doing well when Gina was diagnosed with triple-negative breast cancer, an aggressive, fast-growing cancer requiring major surgery. While all of this was going on, Tom was promoted to department head at AMU. He said this was most likely due to the fact that he threw himself into his work in order to cope with all the chaos at home. 

By 2018, he said that Colorado had become “Illinois with mountains.” Taxes were high, politics were becoming more divisive, but the final straw was when his daughter had to deal with a boy claiming to be a trans girl in her bathroom at school. The family moved to Sheridan, Wyoming. 

Before long, Tom started hearing the same buzzwords he’d heard in Illinois and Colorado – including diversity, equity, and inclusion – and he started trying to warn people what came with those words. He said there would be nowhere left to go if Wyoming fell. 

He was asked to run for city council. He agreed, but with no expectation that he would win. He used the race to get experience running for office. The race was closer than he expected: the local newspaper actually called to congratulate him, but once the absentee ballots were counted, his opponent was declared the winner. 

In 2020, Tom was one of three finalists to replace Jillian Balow, the Superintendent of Public Instruction, who was resigning. While he received the most votes from the Republican Party, he was not chosen by the governor. Brian Schrader was chosen by Governor Mark Gordon to replace Balow. 

In 2022, the Superintendent of Public Instruction seat was on the ballot and Tom was asked to run. He filed, but Brian Schrader decided to run as the incumbent, and Megan Degenfelder joined the race with a well-funded war chest. Tom decided that as the dark horse, he didn’t want to split the conservative vote, so he dropped out of the race and said he would never run for election again. 

As the saying goes, “Never say never,” because Mark Jennings asked Tom to run for his HD30 seat when he decided to step down. This time Tom was in it to win, which he did 59-41%. He has served as the district representative since 2025. 

This year the Superintendent’s seat is again on the ballot with no incumbent, as Degenfelder is running for governor. Tom was asked again to run and told that the consensus is he is the conservative to head education. 

He’s been told by some that he should change his look to better fit into politics, but he said he’s the same person in private as he is in public – a long-haired biker with a Harley. He claims to use more f-bombs privately, but otherwise he is who he is. 

Tom said one thing people will notice when they meet him is that he has characteristics of being “on the spectrum.” While technically undiagnosed, he has done all the testing, and he is what is referred to as high-functioning autistic. As Tom said, “like Elon Musk” but without Elon’s money. He said it’s “plain as day,” especially in his speech, which can come across as blunt, direct, and terse, and occasionally cocky and arrogant. He said he sometimes misreads social cues. He calls himself a social introvert who doesn’t like the spotlight. 

It is these very traits that he and others believe will make him a good Superintendent of Public Instruction, as he will be very focused on the responsibilities of the job and not on running for a different office. He said he is more prepared now than in 2022 to fill the role, not just because of his education experience, but because of his legislative work. 

In the past year, he has served on the education and recalibration committees and has seen what works and what doesn’t in Wyoming education. Tom said that top-down state-to-district doesn’t work. He would like to loosen the demands of the state on local districts, which will allow local communities to decide areas of focus, such as career and technical training, as well as reduce the need for top heavy administrative costs. 

Tom said that while he is filing to run for Superintendent of Public Instruction, until the budget session is over, he will not be campaigning. He will be focused on doing the job he was elected to do.