BISMARCK — From her grandparents’ farm in Beulah to her current home in West Fargo, the last place in North Dakota Michelle Strinden imagined being was in the governor’s office.

But the lieutenant governor-elect is set to be sworn into office on Dec. 15, succeeding Lt. Gov Tammy Miller and becoming the second woman in a row to serve the position. Of the last eight people to hold the office, she will be the fourth woman — though the idea of her gender being attached to the role had “never occurred” to Strinden.

“I think it’s more about the people that are running, their experience and their background,” she said, pointing to Gov.-elect Kelly Armstong’s successor in the U.S. House of Representatives, Julie Fedorchak, who is now the first woman to be the state’s sole House representative.

Strinden’s entire story takes place in North Dakota, where she was born and raised, having spent only six months of her life living outside the state.

She graduated from Century High School in Bismarck and went to the University of North Dakota to earn a teaching degree. A few years after teaching in Grand Forks, she went back to graduate school and became a school counselor for seven years.

Strinden highlighted her time counseling in Richland County, south of Fargo, where she had the opportunity to work with children of all ages.

The rural setting reminded her of her family farm in Beulah, teaching her what binds North Dakotans and separates them.

“It helps with perspective,” she said. “I really want to make sure the policy we create and execute is going to be good for not only our urban communities, but also for our rural communities.”

After moving to West Fargo and starting a family, Strinden made the decision to homeschool one of her four children, who was diagnosed with dyslexia.

Becoming a homemaker laid the foundation for Strinden to enter politics. Aside from teaching her young child — who eventually returned to school in seventh grade and went on to attend the University of North Dakota — her time was saturated with parent-teacher organization meetings, fundraising, and fulfilling general community needs.

She also helped run Bagan Strinden Vision in Fargo, a family-owned clinic and surgery center led by her husband, an independent eye doctor, and Prairie Tech, a technical support company.

Juggling such responsibilities, in part, gave Strinden the confidence to run for a seat in the North Dakota House of Representatives representing District 41 in southwest Fargo.

Her son, Jacob Strinden, an attorney who was the Republican Party’s district vice chair at the time, also encouraged her to run and in doing so, vowed to be her campaign manager.

She was elected as a Republican and returned to Bismarck in 2019, this time as a lawmaker.

“That was my first time coming to Bismarck in sort of a surprising way,” she said.

Literacy and reading proficiency improvement were topics Strinden championed, opening doors to policymaking on issues like behavioral health and “educational freedom” — otherwise known as “school choice.”

During the interim, she chaired the Juvenile Justice Committee in addition to serving on the Health Care and Human Services committees.

Strinden is on the standing Appropriations Committee, which is where every substantive change to law must pass before moving through the House.

Strinden’s replacement will be handed off to someone voted in by District 41 within 21 days of her resignation. They will serve the rest of her term after she resigns in the coming weeks.

Come Dec. 15, addressing property tax costs is “job No. 1,” Strinden said, echoing Gov.-elect Kelly Armstrong, who has made promises to prioritize tax reform.

Using relationships and knowledge built upon while serving in the Legislature, Strinden will otherwise work with K-12 initiatives, higher education and behavioral health — tackling issues like youth mental health decline, low college enrollment rates, and bed shortages in both health care and correctional facilities.

“I’m hoping to really spend some time helping our citizens in this crisis that is going on all over the state,” Strinden said.

“They’re multilayered issues,” she continued. “What we really need to do is aim systematically across government agencies so that we’re looking at case management among all different levels of government, really working together to solve the problem.”

This winter, Strinden will again return to Bismarck in a “surprising” way — as lieutenant governor.

“It’s a very humbling kind of place to find myself, because it’s certainly nothing I could have in my wildest dreams imagined,” she said.

“Right now I’m focused completely on Dec. 15 and executing my job to the best of my ability.”