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Mike Parson
Also Known As Michael Lynn Parson
Governor of Missouri
Michael Lynn Parson is an American politician serving as the 57th governor of Missouri since 2018. A member of the Republican Party, Parson assumed the governorship when Eric Greitens resigned, as he was lieutenant governor at the time. Parson served the remainder of Greitens's term and was elected governor in his own right in 2020.
Parson served in the Missouri House of Representatives from 2005 to 2011 and the Missouri Senate from 2011 to 2017. He was elected lieutenant governor in 2016. He assumed the governorship on June 1, 2018, upon Greitens's resignation. As governor, Parson has signed a bill criminalizing abortion after eight weeks of pregnancy and opposed Medicaid expansion. He oversaw the state's response to the COVID-19 pandemic, issuing a temporary stay-at-home order in April 2020 but allowing schools districts to decide whether to close. Parson placed restrictions on mail-in voting during the 2020 U.S. elections, and oversaw Missouri's reaction to the George Floyd protests.
Early Life
Michael Lynn Parson born on September 17, 1955 in Wheatland, Missouri, and raised on a farm in Hickory County. He graduated from Wheatland High School in 1973.
Parson enlisted in the United States Army in 1975, and served six years in the Military Police Corps, discharged in 1981 at the rank of sergeant.[third-party source needed] While in the Army, he attended night classes at the University of Maryland and the University of Hawaiʻi, without completing a degree.
Parson returned to Hickory County in 1981 to serve as a sheriff's deputy and transferred to the Polk County Sheriff's Office to become its first criminal investigator in 1983. He served as Polk County sheriff from 1993 to 2004.
In 1984, Parson purchased a gas station and named it Mike's. He eventually owned and operated three gas stations in the area.
Parson married his wife, Teresa, in 1985. They have two children. During Parson's term as governor, the couple has lived at the Missouri Governor's Mansion in Jefferson City, except for several months in 2019 when the mansion was undergoing renovations. The couple's personal residence is in Bolivar.
A third-generation farmer, Parson started a cow and calf operation near Bolivar in 1985, which he still owns and operates.
Education
- Graduated - Wheatland High School
Career
- Missouri - Governor