John Thune was born in the Flathead Indian Reservation in Montana. He is a member of the Blackfeet Tribe and has lived in Montana for more than forty years. He graduated from Bigfork High School and attended the University of Montana, where he earned a bachelor's degree in political science. After college, John served in the Peace Corps in Ecuador and taught school in Costa Rica
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In 1981, he moved to Minnesota, where he has been a member of the Minnesota State Senate since 1992. For five years, from 1994 until 1999, he served as Senate Majority Leader. In 2005, President George W.
Bush appointed Thune to be United States Ambassador to Germany. After his term as ambassador expired in 2007, he returned to the Minnesota State Senate, where he currently serves as Chairman of the Senate Committee on Federal-State Relations