Santana Colon says cancer gave her a second chance to serve
Don Harrold, Executive Editor
don.harrold@enterprisepub.com
Jesica Santana Colon said she sees her run for the Harrison County Board of Supervisors as a second chance. “I feel like God gave me a second chance, and I feel like I need to make sure I’m giving back as much as I can, and I need to make a difference,” said Santana Colon, a nurse and breast cancer survivor.
Santana Colon, a Democrat, is running for one of two open seats on the board. She will appear at a candidate forum Wednesday, Oct. 21, at the Rand Community Center in Missouri Valley. Election Day is Nov. 3.
“I had cancer,” she said. “First person in my family to have cancer at my age. … During the pandemic, I actually did our genealogy, did not find any consumption or unknown cause of death for all family members that we had records on that we could find, of course, up to the 1500s.”
“My cancer had actually gotten to my lymph nodes. My lymph nodes were larger than the actual cancer in my breast,” she said. “We also found out that with the treatment that was given to me, it was semi-effective, but they were able to remove it surgically. … I now take oral chemo 21 days out of the month, and the plan is I’ll do that for at least five to 10 years to help prevent it from coming back.”
“They did genetics on me, and they’re going to redo it, because they want to make sure they didn’t miss anything. But they’re like, ‘Your genes are so good. You have nothing,’” she said. “So I truly believe in my heart it is environmentally driven.”
“As I got stronger and returned to work, and my kids graduated high school, you know, you get the empty nester thing. And I told my husband, I said, ‘I need to make my life count,’” she said.
She and her husband served with Harrison County Pheasants Forever. “If this bird can make it here out in the wild, then everything else that belongs in Iowa will be doing OK,” she said. “We stepped down this year with the intention of looking for something that we can do to make bigger waves in our community.”
“I went to a couple of Democratic meetings, and I said, ‘You know what? … I think running for Harrison County Board of Supervisors will be a great fit,’” she said. “I have experience being a leader. And ’cause I’ve been a director of nursing for an assisted living in Blair, I was able to pull together a good team, and then we even got a Great Place to Work award.”
On why she chose the county board: “It’s local. That’s the main reason. It’s local. I truly believe I can make a big impact locally. … If I’m able to stay in my community, and I know it as intimately as I do, I can make a change. I can make a difference. I can hopefully bring in some industries that are going to help revitalize Harrison County.”
“Definitely we need viable job options. And I’m not talking about another store that comes in to sell us a daily good that you might shop at once or twice a month. I’m talking about somewhere you can go in, have a job, maybe a career, that offers health benefits, that offers some sort of retirement, so that we’re not a bedroom community anymore,” she said. “We have the room. We have the roads. We have people who want to stay local. … So one thing I really would like us to do is court industries that are looking for another location to think about Harrison County.”
“I can’t force them,” she said. “But I could definitely say, ‘Hey, come to Harrison County.’ Sometimes when you’re given a title, just having the title gives your conversation some more weight so that you can attract more people to come in.”
She proposed bringing local leaders from across the county together. “Let’s have a massive meeting, and let’s focus on a couple issues, and then make a plan to make it better. In doing that, we’re going to be able to decide what kind of industry do we want here,” she said. “We know Omaha’s growing. They’re heading west. Why don’t we just head east? Come on over here, become an Iowan. Let’s get some industry here. We need to court them, you know?”
“We’ll make it like a four-hour event. We’ll have a lunch with it, have everybody talk. What are your three main concerns in your community? What can we do together?” she said. “We all have an idea. We’re carrying it. We’re all going to work. We’re raising our families, you know, we’re paying our bills, and we’re not coming together like we used to.”
Supervisor races in Iowa are partisan. “It should be non-partisan. I don’t even think we should declare what we are,” she said. “Honestly, if I were to take the are you a Democrat, Republican test, I would probably be right in the middle.”
On where she disagrees with Democrats: “Complete handouts,” she said. “I had friends tell me, ‘You have cancer. You qualify for disability.’ I said, ‘I don’t care if I qualify. I have the ability to work. And if I have to go find a job that understands that I’m going through chemo treatments, that I’m then going to do radiation, that I will have really bad days as I recover, then that’s what I have to do.’ … So I went back to travel nursing, and I would just take assignments throughout the region, and I would drive, and I would work one or two days a week. … If you can, do it.”
On where she agrees with Republicans: “The work requirements. I think those are important,” she said. “There are people who will not get better-ish. You know, like, you think of somebody with cerebral palsy, they’re just going to slowly decline. We do have to make exceptions for that. But I think it is very, very important that we look at work requirements. And if you can, you need to get out there, you know?”
“I’ve had several people even approach me and tell me blatantly, ‘I’m not voting for you just because I ran on the Democratic ticket. I only circle R,’” she said. “I just remind people, it does not matter whether I’m Republican or Democrat. It matters if I could do the job, and I could do the job. … We need to start thinking about the issues that actually we’re having issues with in Harrison County, and not what we’re seeing on TV. … We need to focus on what’s going on in Harrison County and fix those things. And that’s where I’m running at.”
Santana Colon is married to Clay Bowman. “People know my face, and they know me just as Jesica, but I am actually married to Clay Bowman,” she said. She kept her name after difficulty matching her documents for her nursing license. “I’m like, ‘I am so sorry. I’m not going through that again. I am just going to stay Jesica Santana Colon for life,’” she said.
She chose purple for her campaign signs. “Somebody’s like, ‘Why purple?’” she said. “I’m like, ‘Well, because it’s my favorite color, and when you mix red and blue, you get purple.’”
