A Republican from Eudora will run for a seat in the 38th District of the Kansas House of Representatives.

Anthony R. Brown, 35, who works as a Union carpenter in the Kansas City area, will run in the district that covers the northern end of Lawrence, Eudora, De Soto, parts of Olathe, Lenexa and Shawnee and the Eudora, Grant, Wakarusa and Lexington townships.

His platform issues: excellence in education; an equitable tax system for all Kansas residents and economic development of the Kansas Highway 10 corridor.

Brown has never run for office. He formerly taught political science and history at Atchison County Community High School but quit to make more money in carpentry. Brown grew up on a farm between Eudora and Baldwin and returned to Eudora in 1993.

With six children — ages 9, 7, 5 this month, 4, 2 and 4 weeks — Brown will concentrate on education.

“I want to make sure Kansas schools are the best in the nation because my kids are going to those schools,” he said.

In the process, he wants to avoid raising taxes. Instead, school districts should have control over the state funds allocated to them in order to spend the money in the ways that best suit local programs, he said.

To generate more money for the state, Kansas must avoid “brain drain” and build jobs that will entice Kansas youths to stick around.

“What we need is more taxpayers,” he wrote in a letter to the Journal-World on Wednesday.

“And right now we’re not developing the businesses to keep those students here,” he said.

His proposal: Push the biosciences and develop a soy-grade diesel and ethanol energy plan to create jobs.

Rep. Rob Boyer, the Olathe Republican who now holds the 38th District House seat, has announced he won’t seek re-election to the House in November. Instead, he is a challenger for the 9th District Senate seat held by Sen. Kay O’Connor, R-Olathe. That senate district does not include Lawrence.

Boyer has said he would support Tom Marsh, Brown’s opponent from Olathe, as his successor. Marsh announced his candidacy in December.