Born: Olathe

Family: Jill Watson; son, Carter Watson, a second-grader at Tonganoxie Elementary School; three brothers, dogs, Smoke and Cutter; a cat, Angus; and five fish.

Occupation: Academic project manager at Fort Leavenworth’s Army University.

Dream job as a child: Truck driver

Interesting facts: Watson was raised on a third generation farm established in the early 1900s and has a collection of garden tractors. He also can walk on stilts and has visited four of the seven continents, including 17 foreign countries.

Digging deeper: Originally from Fontana and raised in Blue Mound, Watson graduated from Jayhawk-Linn High School in 1996. After joining the Army National Guard and finishing basic training, Watson graduated from Fort Scott Community College in 1999. In total, Watson has been in the Kansas Army National Guard for 18 years. After commissioning as an artillery officer, he attended the U.S. Army Field Artillery School in Fort Sill, Okla. Following deployments in 2003 and 2005, he earned his construction engineering technology degree in 2006 from Pittsburg State University.

Watson later went on to complete two more overseas tours and two stateside tours on active duty from 2007-14 and became a Department of the Army civilian in 2014. His deployments with the Kansas Army National Guard include FortRiley, Kosovo, Iraq and Djibouti.

Major military decorations include the Bronze Star Medal and two Meritorious service medals. He was inducted into the honorable order of St. Barbara, the patron saint of the field artillery, in 2005. During his service, he spent two weeks with the Rwandan Defense Force during an exercise. While in Rwanda, he was able to visit one of the six genocide memorials in the capital city of Kigali.

“It was the most sobering experience I have ever had,” he said.

Watson met his wife in 2002 through a mutual friend. They married in 2007 and moved to Tonganoxie in 2008.

“We had looked at several other communities in the area, but we chose Tongie because we felt that the housing was affordable, the community didn’t feel overly suburban and the proximity to Lawrence, Leavenworth and Kansas City was really good,” Watson said.

They both officiate high school sports, Jill the past six years in volleyball and Grant the past two years in baseball and volleyball.

Watson is on the Tonganoxie Planning Commission. He applied for the position in 2012 after the long debate about the traffic light being constructed at Laming Road or Stone Creek.

“I felt like it would be a good opportunity to use my construction background to lend an objective and technical voice to how our city plans to expand in the future,” Watson said. “I enjoy seeing our city grow and I consider it my personal responsibility to ensure that it happens properly. I consider it an honor to serve the people of my community and I intend to continue serving the city as long as I am able.”