Education and healthcare among Cathy Jo Loy's priorities in Jefferson City

CARTHAGE, Mo. — While most of us are focused on that big holiday on the 25th, a Carthage woman is also keeping her eye on another date a couple of weeks from now.

"So I was born in Ottawa, Kansas, but lived in Missouri most of my life. Raised in Kansas City area," said Cathy Jo Loy, MO state rep. elect, (R).

In 2000, Cathy Jo Loy moved to Southwest Missouri. Originally a temporary move that stuck.

"This is our community. This is our home. This is my family support. It is very important. It's one of the reasons I'm doing what I'm doing what I'm doing," said Loy.

Starting January 8, that is serving as the next state representative for Missouri's 163rd district.

"I want to see families do well, that is my biggest thing. How can we make families live a better life? And I think we do that through policy in Missouri. I think Missouri is a great state to live and I want to see more people come to Missouri, and then our children stay in Missouri," said Loy.

Loy has previously been a stay-at-home mother of five and at one time ran a licensed home daycare.

But more recently, she's been advocating for education issues in Jefferson City - something that helped her decide to run for office.

"I think there's a lot of things in education that just put a lot of burdens on our teachers, on our school districts that really aren't theirs to do. And I know that DESE is trying to fix the problem, but we haven't seen the fixes that have come into place," said Loy.

She's also interested in changing the way Missouri chooses judges… and handles Medicaid.

"The government doesn't do medicine well, and it really prohibits our doctors from being free to practice medicine in the best way they know how. So I want to really make sure that we push back on some of those federal mandates, those federal things. We let our physicians be the best physicians they can be," said Loy.

Loy takes over the seat held by state representative and house budget chair Cody Smith, who is now term-limited out of the position.