Veteran, Jeopardy winner and the first Indian American elected to Frisco City Council

CBS News

19 hours ago

He's a military veteran, a game show winner and now the first Indian American elected to Frisco's city council.
Whether it was joining the Navy only months before 9/11 or winning the very last episode of Jeopardy hosted by Alex Trebek, Burt Thakur's life seems to involve a lot of fateful timing.
"The one thing that a lot of people got anchored to was that my story was the quintessential American dream," said Thakur. "And as somebody who immigrated here, I learned how to speak English by watching Alex Trebek."
Thakur shared that emotional story and became part of game show history.
Five years later, the time was right for the 42-year-old engineer to make political history in Frisco.
He pulled off an upset on Saturday by beating an incumbent to earn a seat on the city council.
"[I] 100% expected to win," Thakur said. "I mean, our campaign did so much work. We knocked on thousands of doors. I think one of the coolest things about the campaign was I had never sent out an attack ad."
Thakur is also the first Indian American to get elected to public office in Frisco, a community that makes up 15% of the city's population.
"Well, I'll tell you what, I'm confident that my win energized the Indian American community for sure," Thakur said. "I think it not just energized the Indian community, but a lot of our community got energized. I think we had some of the highest turnouts in Frisco races in the last couple of years, but specifically for the Indian community."
Thakur believes Frisco voters from all backgrounds voted for him because he wants the city to focus more on meeting the needs of its residents rather than trying to appeal to visitors.
"Understanding that we are a city of almost 250,000 people and we don't have an animal shelter," said Thakur. "We don't have a VA clinic. We have 8 to 10,000 kids here who have autism and severe learning disabilities, and parents don't have relief. And conversely, we have a large geriatric population that doesn't have an adult or geriatric care facility. And at the same time, driving down the road, I lose my cell phone signal."
As for his political future, Thakur wants to prove to others and himself that he can succeed in city government first.
"I don't think my wife wants me to run for office right now," he said. "Can we have that conversation in like in the last year? Because maybe I'll suck, you know, I don't know. Hey, I'm being serious. You know, I don't know if I'm going to be good. I want to be good ... I want the whole my whole job is to make sure that people now can dream bigger, that they have somebody who's an advocate for them to pursue their highest excellence. I say, what's wrong? What's wrong with thinking big?"