In every conversation we’ve had for Gaslit: The Power of Story, one truth keeps rising to the surface: people are doing everything right and still falling behind. They’re working, raising families, and holding communities together, but the system around them has made survival feel like success.
In Episode 6, educator and candidate Logan Patberg joined us to talk about what representation looks like when it’s grounded in lived experience. He’s a teacher at Central High School, a second-career educator who spent a decade in the automotive industry before stepping into the classroom. That path matters. It means he’s stood on both sides of the counter, working-class labor and public service, and he understands how decisions made in Indianapolis reach all the way into Evansville’s homes and classrooms.
Patberg’s WHY is rooted in that dual perspective. He sees firsthand how policy becomes reality. He’s watched families make impossible choices: paying for medicine or utilities, groceries or rent. He’s seen students show up hungry because their families lost federal SNAP benefits during the shutdown. He’s seen teachers stretch their own paychecks to cover classroom needs. And he’s heard small-business owners, from coffee shops to bookshops, talk about months when the bills outpaced their sales.
It’s not abstract. It’s happening right here, in Posey and western Vanderburgh Counties, where affordability is no longer a buzzword; it’s a daily calculation.
Patberg connects those local pressures to structural issues that go beyond party lines. Childcare costs consume 10 percent or more of family income. Housing supply hasn’t kept pace with demand. Energy costs that drive out small businesses and deter new employers. Wages that don’t match inflation. Each layer builds on the last, forming a web of instability that no single policy can fix, but that responsive, transparent leadership could begin to untangle.
What stood out most in this conversation wasn’t rhetoric; it was proximity. Patberg has been at the doors. He’s been listening. He’s hearing the same story told in different words: people want dignity, not charity. They want fairness, not favors. They want a system that works as hard for them as they work for everyone else.
He also pointed toward what could be a turning point for Southwestern Indiana, a potential coalition of leaders who actually communicate with one another and with the people they represent. Imagine Patberg, Sally Busby, and Alex Burton working in alignment, sharing information, holding town halls, and translating the voices of their districts into actionable policy. That kind of unified front could begin to restore trust and make affordability something Hoosiers feel in their pocketbooks, not just hear about in campaign mailers.
Transparency and accountability were recurring themes. Patberg spoke about holding regular town halls, bringing statehouse decisions back to the community, and making legislative committees visible to the people they affect. It’s a model of public service that treats communication as a duty, not a favor.
Throughout Gaslit, we’ve explored how storytelling itself becomes social action, how listening, sharing, liking, and participating all build collective power. This episode is another reminder that representation starts the same way: by listening.
The stories from our guests: residents, small-business owners, advocates, and educators, form the foundation of that change. When people tell their stories, they’re no longer isolated experiences; they’re data points with humanity attached. They become evidence, urgency, and proof.
As Patberg reminded us, change doesn’t begin in Washington. It begins here, in conversations like this one, in classrooms, in community meetings, and in the voting booth. Real change starts local, grows outward, and lasts because it’s rooted in people who refuse to be silent.
Every listener, every share, every vote, every story adds weight to that momentum.