TAKING STOCK. Troy D. Stock grew up in an "oil field town" with a "vibe" that reminds him of Dillon, the fictional Texas town where the NBC drama series "Friday Night Lights" is set. The Farmington, N.M., native and recent Duke University School of Law graduate has been named senior policy adviser for Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah. Stock's start on the Hill was a bumpy one. "Duke was supposed to set up a [clerkship]" for him during his second year of law school, he explained. "But because this was the first semester [the university] had done it, there were growing pains, and they ended up having no spots for me." One weekend, Stock came up to Washington from Durham, N.C., and courted lawmakers from Utah, North Carolina and New Mexico, the three states where he has resided. "I didn't even know [Chaffetz] or know anyone in the office, I just knocked on the door one day," he said. But Chaffetz took him on, and when Stock finished his clerkship at the end of the winter semester, he was asked to stay on as a full-time staffer until he returned to Duke for his third and final year. Stock's father is a sheriff's officer in Farmington, as well as a helicopter pilot in the U.S. Army Reserve. He is the eldest of three, and worked as a legislative aide for Republican Utah state Rep. Kory Holdaway while an undergraduate at Brigham Young University. Stock received his law degree from Duke in May and studied for the D.C. bar exam over the summer, reuniting with Chaffetz this month.

LATTA MOVES. Several changes are under way in the office of Rep. Bob Latta, R-Ohio. Caitlin Poling, a former intern at the Claremont Institute and the Heritage Foundation, has been promoted from staff assistant to legislative correspondent. Her replacement is Erin Partee, formerly with public affairs at the Labor Department. Latta's new scheduler is Courtney Powell, who previously interned for two Republican members of the Texas delegation, Rep. Ralph Hall and Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison.

HELLO DAVID. Jake Ward is the new vice president of the David All Group. Ward, who was most recently president of Brodeur Communications, has piloted press shops in both chambers, having served as communications director for Rep. Dan Lungren, R-Calif., and press secretary for Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine.