CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (KCRG) - Iowa native Brandt Snakenberg left the state nearly 30 years ago.

“I moved to Texas in ’98, honestly, because there were not any teaching jobs in the state of Iowa at that time,” Snakenberg said.

So, he left for Texas to teach after getting his degree from the University of Northern Iowa. But after nine years, he still didn’t feel connected to the big city.

He missed Iowa and wanted his children to grow up near family.

“They had teachers who had them essentially from sixth, seventh grade all the way through graduation,” Snakenberg said. “You don’t generally find that in larger districts and definitely not in larger metropolitan schools like we were at in Houston.”

He now teaches at Des Moines Public Schools.

Snakenburg was part of Iowa’s brain drain . Bu

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