Meet Roy
A fifth-generation Missourian, Roy Blunt was born in a doctor’s office in Niangua, Missouri. His mom and dad were dairy farmers in Southwest Missouri and taught him the intrinsic value of a day’s hard work. These values helped him become the first in his family to graduate from college.
His grandmothers were both one-room schoolteachers, which must be where Roy caught the “teaching bug,” because, as the first person in his family to graduate from college, after earning his master’s at Missouri State University, Roy went on to teach school in Marshfield, Missouri. In the classroom, Roy helped teach young Missourians about history’s successes and failures and their application to current events.
Even then, community and public service were his passions, and Roy served as Greene County Clerk for twelve years. As county clerk and chief elections official in Missouri’s third largest county, Roy quickly embraced technology that made elections fairer, more accessible, and less expensive, while implementing initiatives to make county government more transparent for its citizens.
Building on these successes, Roy was the first Republican elected Missouri Secretary of State in over fifty years. Again, he deployed technology to protect Missouri investors from fraud and, as the state’s chief elections official, rooted out fraud in state elections, insisting on fairness regardless of political party. Four years later, Roy was overwhelmingly reelected to a second term as Secretary of State.
A commitment to students and to educating the next generation of leaders led Roy back to his alma mater, Southwest Baptist University, this time to serve as its president.
The people of Southwest Missouri sent Roy to Congress in 1996. Roy took Southwest Missouri common sense to Washington with him, and there he was known as a solutions-oriented problem solver with a firm commitment to making government work for Southwest Missourians. Roy was decisively reelected six times. In 2010, Missourians elected Roy to be their United States Senator.
Roy has never stopped listening to Missourians and taking our common sense with him to Washington. Roy has traveled to all 114 counties and the City of St. Louis an unprecedented three times since launching his campaign for U.S. Senate in 2009.
No one works harder than Roy Blunt. Roy knows that too often government just gets in the way, so he has fought tirelessly to stop government overreach and lower the regulatory burden hitting families and jobs across Missouri. Roy has stood up to this administration on issues like Obamacare and has been a staunch opponent of the kinds of misguided energy policies that will double utility bills in Missouri and send our jobs overseas. Roy has been a leader for Missouri’s farm families, for our military and Missouri’s vital role in the defense of our nation, and for encouraging the kind of innovation that creates good jobs and keeps America’s economy moving.
Roy is married to Abby Blunt and has four children: fifteen-year-old Charlie, Missouri’s 54th Governor Matt Blunt, Amy Blunt of Columbia, and Andy Blunt of Jefferson City, and six grandchildren.