Since growing up in Duluth and graduating from East High School, Sharon McMahon has had a fascinating life on the road to being known as “America’s Government Teacher,” and now a New York Times #1 best-selling author of “The Small and the Mighty,” published in September 2024.
As Sharon says on her website, “My mission is simple: I aim to cover daily headlines, break down national political coverage and biases, and extract the facts . . . I’m committed to using nonpartisan facts as my guide. I break down tough-to-follow political headlines and events through daily news briefings, thought-provoking conversations, historical context and humor.”
Sharon taught government for twelve years in Washington D. C., California, and Minnesota. When she, her husband and her family of four children moved back to Duluth, she decided to pursue her love of yarn with her own business. As a “yarnista,” she started her own yarn dyeing business, Three Girls Yarn, and took photos of her beautifully colored, hand-dyed yarns for her catalogs. Her success with photography led her to starting her own studio,“Three Girls Photography.” She loved taking pictures of newborns, maternity photos, families, couples, grads, and weddings, and for many years won “Best Photographer in the Northland” awards. When the pandemic hit and, at the same time, in 2020, her husband needed a kidney transplant and had to be in Rochester at the Mayo Clinic, Sharon had to give up her highly successful photography studio. Thankfully, her husband’s transplant was successful. And then lightning struck in the form of the 2020 election. She said, “I was reading online posts of people who had so much misinformation about what was going on with the election, including one man who thought that a person could actually attend the Electoral College as a student.” She added, “I decided to do a short simple video explaining how the Electoral College actually works. That brought many people’s questions for me about other aspects of government and how things work.” Sharon was fielding questions about everything from the certification of the electoral votes to the transfer of power. Beginning in the fall of 2020, TV and radio stations all over the country started getting in touch, wanting to know more about her, and what she thought was going to happen with the election. She also started getting requests to teach workshops on the Constitution and the history of Congress. That led to her teaching Zoom classes. Appearances on shows such as the Today Show and The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, and interviews in publications like the Washington Post and The Atlantic, gained her even more recognition.
Her commonsense approach to talking about what was happening with the election aftermath and government in such a completely unprecedented time in American history gained her widespread acclaim. After CNN featured her in a piece, they continued to call her asking questions about what she could explain about a variety of issues, so that the reporters could better understand the nuances of changing events. Sharon still routinely receives calls from CNN reporters asking her questions. Another significant call came from the George W. Bush Foundation, asking her to speak on a panel at the George W. Bush Presidential Center’s “Engage at the Bush Center” series. “Speaking with the Bushes was amazing, George is very funny, and Laura could not have been nicer or more kind to me,” she related.
In July 2021, she began her own non-partisan podcast “Here’s Where It Gets Interesting,” focused on American history and politics. Podcast guests have included Senator Mitt Romney, actor George Takei, documentarians Ken Burns and Sarah Botstein, among many other famous guests and important people including CEOs, authors, presidential speech writers, Congressional candidates, professors, and former CIA officers. This is the second year of the podcast, already up to a library of more than 300 episodes. She was even invited to this year’s State of the Union Address and had the chance to attend a reception with many Congresspeople while she was in Washington D.C. As she had people reach out to her at her sites, she started hearing about the needs of those trying to pay medical bills that were crippling their families. Sharon went on her site and asked her followers for 50 cents on Venmo to help these families, raising $11,000 overnight and then $25,000 and then $125,000 and more. “We started giving the money to people, always keeping transparent about the funding,” she said. The awards and recognition were increasing for all her endeavors, including the Jefferson Awards founded in 1972 by Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Senator Robert Taft Jr., and Sam Beard. It is has been called “the country’s longest standing and most prestigious celebration of public service.”
At the November 2022 Jefferson Awards event in New York City, McMahon received the S. Roger Horchow Award for Outstanding Public Service by a Private Citizen for her work “dispelling misinformation on the internet as well as raising more than $4.2 million for charities like RIP Medical Debt and World Central Kitchen.” At that event, she was also recognized for “being a champion of teachers and education, by raising over $1.2 million dollars in one weekend in August 2022 with 100 percent of the money going to $500 individual teacher grants.”
In 2022, she won “Communicator of the Year” from PR Week, a publication for public relations professionals. Of McMahon, they said, “Our 2022 Communicator of the Year, Sharon McMahon, is someone who upholds the values of fact-based nonpartisan information at a time when this has never been more needed.” Her followers have responded with more donations for other worthwhile causes, including for terminally ill children and survivors of domestic violence This past May, McMahon won a Webby Award for “Best Writing for a Podcast.” The Webby Award is the leading international award honoring excellence on the Internet and is recognized as what The New York Times called” The Internet’s highest honor.”
Sharon will continue to tackle questions about American government and associated topics at her website, on her podcasts and in her speeches and public appearances. Her website noted, “Sharon has amassed hundreds of thousands of followers online, affectionately called the “Governerds,” who look to her for truth and logic in a society plagued by bias and conspiracy.” For more information and podcast show notes, visit her website at sharonmcmahon.com and at @sharonsaysso instagram.com/sharonsaysso
