A fresh face: New GrunDems chairwoman aims to shake up county party

Tracy Freese had something of a moral epiphany four years ago. At a luncheon with a group of fellow bankers, she heard one of them railing against the “takers” in society: welfare recipients, “Obamaphone” users and other beneficiaries of government programs designed to assist the poor.
           
Suddenly, it hit Freese, the 34-year-old newly-named chairwoman of the Grundy County Democratic Party, like a ton of bricks: according to the angry conservative next to her, she was everything that’s wrong with America.
           
“I was raised on Social Security because I was the only child of a disabled single mother. I went to school on free and reduced lunch programs. I didn’t pay for my driver’s education program because she couldn’t afford it. I then got Pell grants and subsidized Stafford loans to go to college,” said Freese, a Clinton native with degrees from the now-defunct Franciscan University and UNI. “I realized I was a taker, if you will, but I don’t want to call it that…I’d like to think that my community made an investment in me.”
           
Now living in Dike with her husband and their three children, Freese has chosen to get active locally in a deeply conservative county, and she took over as the chair of the recently rebranded “GrunDems” just over two months ago after a meeting at the Grundy County Courthouse, replacing Phyllis Holland. As one of her first orders of business, she declared that the party would no longer meet at courthouses: on Thursday night, they’ll be gathering at the Broad Street Brewery in Reinbeck with special guest Rob Hogg, a state senator from Cedar Rapids who ran for the U.S. Senate last year.
           
“She’s really what we needed. We needed some fresh blood and new ideas, and she’s energetic and willing to work and get people involved,” past county chairwoman Carol Gordon said.
 
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