Intending to become a lawyer rather than to carry on the family's farming or banking operations, he attended the University of Nebraska College of Law.
[4] During and after the crisis, Williams and other residents aggressively recruited industries; eventually, four Fortune 500 companies set up operations in the Gothenburg area.
[8] In late October, he announced that he would seek the legislative seat representing District 36, consisting of Dawson, Custer, and the northern third of Buffalo Counties, and including the cities of Gothenburg, Lexington, Cozad, and Broken Bow.
[9][10] Under Nebraska's term-limits law, the incumbent, John Wightman, a Republican from Lexington, was ineligible to run for a third consecutive term.
Luis Sotelo, a Lexington Democrat, was a college-planning specialist working for EducationQuest, a Lincoln-based nonprofit established to improve access to post-secondary education in Nebraska.
[13][14][15][16][17] In the course of the campaign, Williams declared that the two most critical current issues in Nebraska were water policy, which he described as unsustainable, and the state's tax structure, which he said handicapped attempts to recruit businesses; he stated that his background in business and in agriculture and his "proven leadership skills" were what the voters wanted and needed.
[18] Sotelo asserted that education, particularly in early childhood, was a critical issue,[18] and said that the legislature needed members who would represent Latinos, Africans, and the middle class, "not just upper-class whites".
[22] Sotelo's single largest contributor was Leadership for Educational Equity, which provided $7750;[23] the group describes itself as "a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering Teach For America corps members and alumni to grow as leaders in their communities and help build the movement for educational equity".