By TONY GUERRERO
Hays Post
Former Gov. Jeff Colyer returned to his hometown of Hays Tuesday to reflect on his career and outline his plan for Kansas' future.
"I'm thrilled and honored to be home. I'm a fifth-generation Hays person. Fort Hays educated my parents, my grandparents, and it was part of my education as well," he said.
Colyer, the only Kansas governor from Hays, served as the state’s 47th governor from January 2018 to January 2019. In May, he announced his 2026 gubernatorial campaign in a YouTube video.
Speaking at an event hosted by the FHSU College Republicans and a returning Turning Point USA chapter, he highlighted his record of steering the state budget from crisis to surplus.
"When I left office, instead of handing over a $500 million deficit and $800 in the checking account of the state of Kansas, I handed Laura Kelly an $800 million surplus, and we didn't raise taxes to do that," he said.
Colyer also touted cutting about 5,500 state jobs he deemed unnecessary. He criticized wokeism and DEI in education, urging instead a focus on reading, STEM, coding and artificial intelligence skills.
"Only one out of three third graders can read at the third-grade level in Kansas," Colyer said.
Colyer said the curriculum at the state and local school board levels needs to be reviewed and revised, noting ACT scores have fallen over the past seven years.
Toward the end of the evening, an attendee asked Colyer to define what he meant by wokeism in relation to his criticism of education.
"My definition is that it is something that gets rid of any sort of merit that is a politically inspired outcome," Colyer said.
Colyer said he resolved long-running K-12 finance lawsuits, noting that for 50 years before his tenure, every Kansas governor, regardless of party, had been sued and lost over inadequate school funding.
He said the funding did not come from new taxes but from cost savings that freed up about $1 billion annually, which was directed to education.
"What we did is privatized the Medicaid program a couple of years ago so that every person who was on Medicaid can have their choice of three different insurance policies," Colyer said. "That's how we were able to make government more efficient and allowed us to take care of K-12 education."
Another priority Colyer outlined, if elected governor again, is ensuring that the next generation can build a future in Kansas, with access to higher-value jobs and safer communities.
Colyer said local property taxes are going "crazy" and Kansas is one of the highest-tax states in the region.
"The reason I'm running for governor is because of people like you," Colyer said to the audience full of students and community members. "I want our kids to see their future in this state, and that their best future is in this state. Not in Texas, Arizona, Tennessee, it's here in Kansas."
Colyer discussed working with President Donald Trump during his first term and how Trump appointed him in February 2020 to chair the National Advisory Commission on Rural Health.
He said rural hospitals were a key focus, noting they had struggled to stay afloat for decades.
"Over the matter of weeks, we distributed billions of dollars. They all stayed open and were able to serve people. We did a lot in rural health to start improving, but we got a lot more to do both on the federal level and on the state level," he said.
He also pointed to water challenges in rural Kansas, noting their impact on energy, agriculture, data centers and population in the southwest region of the state.
Colyer also answered student questions on pursuing truth at universities and on protecting the unborn, pointing to his record as governor, where he said he signed 20 pro-life laws.
Colyer opened the event with his background in Hays, such as how attending Thomas More Prep-Marian influenced his life to become a surgeon, inspired by his mother's battle with breast cancer.
