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Stephen Smith jumps into race for governor

RUN FOR GOVERNOR — Stephen Smith, former director of the West Virginia Healthy Kids and Families Coalition, speaks about his intention to run on the Democratic ticket for governor in 2020 during a stop in Wheeling Monday. -- Joselyn King

WHEELING — The first candidate to jump into the 2020 West Virginia governor’s race believes no politician singularly makes a difference in the world.

“It takes a movement,” said Democrat Stephen Smith of Kanawha County.

Smith spoke of his intention to run for governor in 2020 during a stop at the Bordas and Bordas law offices in Wheeling on Monday. Smith, 38, until recently served as director of the West Virginia Healthy Kids and Families Coalition for the past six years.

“The world is broken, the state is broken,” he said. “The first thing I’ve learned in public is you never do something for someone they can do for themselves. That’s been the story of the Healthy Kids and Family Coalition.”

In the last six years, the group has successfully championed the passage of 28 pieces of legislation in the West Virginia Legislature, according to Smith. It also has started 300 community gardens and worked to establish walking trails, farmers markets and small businesses across the state, he said.

“We didn’t do that because of me, or because our organization has a lot of money,” Smith said. “We believe in the power of everyday West Virginians.”

“If there is one idea this campaign is built on, it’s what would it look like if the values and generosity we see in our communities actually governed the statehouse? It would be a lot different.”

Smith said he was born in Charleston, but moved from West Virginia when he was child.

He graduated from Plano Senior High School in Plano, Texas. From there, he went on to Harvard and a degree in sociology.

It was at Harvard where Smith got involved in a student movement urging the raising of wages for campus service employees. This led him to pursue a career in public service.

He was involved with an AIDS organization in Botswana, and moved on to work with young people in Chicago.

He met his future wife, Sara N. Whitaker, an attorney who took a job in London. While there, Smith obtained a master’s degree from the London School of Economics.

The couple returned to West Virginia six years ago, when Whitaker took a job as public defender in Kanawha County.

That was when Smith took the job with the West Virginia Healthy Kids and Families Coalition. Smith said his campaign for governor has been in the works “for quite a while” as he recruited captains and volunteers to assist him in his effort.

Candidates for the 2020 election can’t officially start filing for office until January 2020.

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