Janet Holcomb says she doesn't feel like anyone special

MUNCIE, Ind. (AP) - Sitting in one of the lounge areas of Westminster Village, Janet Holcomb said she doesn't feel like anyone special. She still returns to her hometown of Muncie from Indianapolis as often as possible to visit family.

Even though she doesn't feel different, she's the First Lady of Indiana now. So, along with her dog, Henry, she also has a security guard in tow.

"It's kind of interesting how we're the same people that we were two months ago, or three months ago, but everything around us has changed," Holcomb said. "I go to the grocery store now and have a security detail with me. Target, anywhere I go."

Holcomb sat down with The Star Press Tuesday afternoon, after visiting her grandmother at the assisted-living facility Westminster Village, and meeting her sister, Carey Fisher, at Concannons Bakery & Cafe.

She talked about growing up in the area, and her whirlwind of a year.

As a kid, Holcomb said she "never even considered" that she would one day be the state's First Lady. Really, she said she never thought about it until almost a year ago, when her husband, Eric Holcomb, was asked by then-Gov. Mike Pence to consider serving as lieutenant governor.

"So I thought, 'Great, this is a nice step and we'll have four years to contemplate if we even want to take the next step forward, politically, and run for governor.'" Holcomb said. "Four and a half months later we were at the top of the ballot."

In those four months Pence was chosen to run with President Donald Trump as vice president, and Eric Holcomb became the GOP candidate for governor in Indiana.

Growing up, Janet Holcomb thought she would be doing something with art. She always loved to read, write and draw, she says, although she was a self-proclaimed "Tom-boy," biking and riding four-wheelers. She was heavily into 4-H.

"I spent a lot of time outside," she said. "We lived on a small farm and had horses."

Holcomb went to Selma Elementary and Selma Middle School in the Liberty-Perry district. She went to Wapahani High School for one year before transferring to Burris Laboratory School, the public K-12 school on Ball State University's campus. There, she joined a gifted and talent art program.

"Burris is a neat school where you could kind of pursue your individual interests, so it allowed me to do that," she said.

She also spent a lot of time talking about business with her parents, especially around the dinner table. Her father started R&R Engineering, a manufacturing company, in Summitville in 1969.

Holcomb graduated from Burris in 1987 with her heart set on going to the Art Institute of Chicago. But her parents convinced her to start out at Ball State, at least for a couple years.

"I think they were more comfortable sending a 19- or 20-year-old to Chicago to live on her own than an 18-year-old," she said. "Understandable."

She ended up staying at Ball State, working at the local Art Mart and earning a bachelor's degree in drawing and master's degree in print making. During her graduate studies she got an assistantship at the David Owsley Museum of Art on campus, where she said she helped curate a new prints exhibit.

"After college, life just ended up going in a different direction, as it often does, and I don't have as much time to focus on (art) at this point in my life," Holcomb said. "But I think at some point I will."

Holcomb ended up going into fundraising. At first, briefly, she did nonprofit fundraising, then political fundraising, contracting with "a number of candidates." That's how she met Eric Holcomb, shortly after he started working for former-Gov. Mitch Daniels. They've been married for five years.

For seven years Holcomb served as vice president of her father's business, R&R Engineering. She was commuting 140 miles a day from their home in Indianapolis, she said, which took a toll, especially when her husband began campaigning statewide. For now, she's taking some time off to figure out her role as First Lady, but she said she plans to work at least part time when things settle down.

She also plans to continue as a firearms instructor, a hobby the Holcombs touted during their campaign for governor.

"That's something I enjoy doing, teaching other women to shoot and defend themselves," she said. "Something I will continue."

It's not difficult to see how Holcomb's childhood in East Central Indiana will affect her agenda as First Lady. For example, she's already publicly announced her intent to support organizations like 4-H and Boy and Girl Scouts of America. She also said she plans to support the arts.

Holcomb said she will "absolutely" be keeping Muncie and Delaware County on her mind. She pointed out her husband already announced in his State of the State address his focus on two major problems for this area: drugs and diversifying jobs.

"Muncie has been one of the communities that has been very hard hit ... as auto jobs that sustained this area for decades moved away, it's been a challenge," she said. "(We) hope to be able to make this again a source of manufacturing jobs.

"We see that, too, as a key. If you have a job a lot of things are easier. Give people hope for a brighter future."

Fisher said her sister has always been "down-to-earth," something Holcomb credits to growing up with Hoosier values, like putting family first. Holcomb doesn't have children of her own, but is a "fantastic aunt," Fisher says, to Fisher's two sons, who now go to Burris.

Fisher and her husband, Jud Fisher, president of the Ball Brothers Foundation, helped support the Holcomb's campaign by holding a fundraiser locally. The campaign was trying, Fisher said. She remembers talking about it over the phone with Holcomb.

"She certainly worked just as hard at the process as he did," Fisher said. The hardest part for her was the ads.

"It is interesting just going through the campaign process and seeing some of the ads on TV ... and it does get you, like that's not the person I know," Fisher said. "You have to learn how to filter those things a little bit better."

While the Holcombs are still adjusting to their newfound fame, students from Liberty-Perry schools have been excited to learn the person they were watching on TV once walked the same halls, said Wapahani High School counselor Libby Richie.

Richie went to school with Holcomb, and tweeted about the local connection. She said Holcomb's family members were "good, down-to-earth people."

"It's fun to see somebody that you grew up with being in that role, I know she's going to do a fabulous job," Richie said. "It's just a great example of you can do anything you want, or you never know where the world will take you."

As for Holcomb, her message to students currently at her former schools is: "Work hard, learn and then be receptive to opportunities in life as they present themselves. You kind of never know where life is going to lead."

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Source: The (Muncie) Star Press, http://tspne.ws/2kiu0qA

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Information from: The Star Press, http://www.thestarpress.com