The Heart of Being in Public Service: Dorothy Knauss

Dorothy Knauss is about to relinquish the reins of mayorship for a second time in her life after stepping into Chewelah’s interim mayor position in June; this time to the new incoming mayor, Lindsay Baxter. Before stepping down, she shared a little about her background and experience as a civil servant and elected mayor.

According to Knauss, her family moved to Stevens County in 1946, when she was two years old, and moved to Chewelah when she was in the fourth grade. She said, “It was very interesting because I came into this building in the fourth grade, never dreaming that [one day] I would come in the door as mayor.”

Describing her life’s trajectory, she recalled,“In high school, when we did our yearbook and they tried to predict what somebody’s future would be – mine was city clerk. I thought it was crazy. But in 1979, I was hired as city clerk.”

Knauss said she has spent 46 years in public service, including roles such as city clerk, clerk/treasurer, city administrator, mayor and most recently, city council appointed interim mayor.

After graduating from Jenkins High School in 1962, she worked as a legal secretary for two-and-half years for Larry Kristianson, who is now a retired Stevens County Superior Court judge. Knauss said she next worked at “Northwest Alloys for four years. I was the secretary to the raw materials and the ferroalloys departments and later a front line supervisor.”.

Her calling to public service eventually came from her former boss. “Surprisingly enough, Larry Kristianson recommended me to the mayor, suggested that I apply, so I did,” she said.

Once hired as city clerk, her career advanced into other positions, reaching city administrator in 1992. “Then I decided I wanted to retire,” she said of her first retirement.

“In 1998, the mayor had dismissed his city administrator and asked me to come back. I came out of retirement to do this until 1999. Then I said, ‘That’s it, I am not going back.’” She continued.

Knauss said her husband passed away from cancer in 2010. That’s roughly when she came out of her second retirement. “The then city administrator, Mike Frizzell, came and asked me if I would fill a position on city council that was vacant. He said, ‘Why don’t you put your letter in?’ So I did; I served a year-and-a-half on city council from 2012-13. And he said, ‘By the way, would you consider running for mayor?’ And I thought, ‘That’s just crazy!’”

She consulted with her family, whom she assumed would advise her against it, “because the city administrator job can be pretty stressful. Instead they all said, ‘We just think that’s great.’ So, I did and I was mayor for eight years [2014-2021].”

She then attempted a third time to retire. “At the end, in 2021, I could see that the city needed to move ahead in technology and just streamline the way we did things, and I did not feel like I had the mental energy to do that. So I decided not to run again,” Knauss said.

In total, she said she has come back four times to the city.

“After the new mayor was elected, it wasn’t long before he called me and said, ‘We have a vacancy on our civil service commission. Could you fill that?’ I came back a little over a year ago to fill that position, from late 2022 to early 2023.”

When mayor Greg McCunn resigned on May 5, 2025, she was appointed by the council to come back until the elections. Despite enjoying retirement, she reported, “I was excited to come back because it was a situation where I was the only one who was really qualified. I probably have attended over 500 council meetings in my 46 years, from 1979-2025.”

She described returning to conflict and tension. “We would have 100 people in council meetings, which is very unusual. There was a lot of tension between the community and within the council, and I felt like I could be a calming influence. I came back with the intent to calm things down and just keep things moving forward until the new mayor was elected. I have had a number of people tell me that the night I took the oath, you could feel the tension leave the room. That made me feel good,” she said.

When asked how she explained her calming influence, she said, “I have a lot of historical knowledge of the city, but I know probably one of my best attributes is that I know, without a doubt, the role of the mayor and the role of the council. And, I don’t let them mix and that works well for everyone.”

As for her role as interim mayor, she acknowledged, “They’re ready for a new administration now. I deliberately have not made changes or started anything new for obvious reasons – a new mayor is going to want to come in and have their own administration.”

In terms of the new mayor, she said she has been meeting with Baxter to help him prepare. “We probably had four meetings by now, and we will have another one this next week. We spend a couple of hours just talking about what it means to be the mayor of a small town. It’s totally different from running a corporation or running a business. He doesn’t have experience in government; he has experience in business and he’s been on the board of the golf course… He attends all of our council meetings, so he has been absorbing what’s going on. I am confident he will do a good job.”

She added, “He actually will take his oath the day the election is certified, Nov. 25, and then he will be mayor. I begged him to take his oath, not that I had to, he was very willing to do that. The sooner he gets started the better.”

Knauss said some highlights from her time as mayor include creating a “Students in Government” program in conjunction with the local high school’s civic class. She said, “Every year, the city attorney and I would go over to the Civic’s class and talk to them about what a Second Class Code City is, which we are. Then we would challenge them to elect a mayor and seven council members to just mirror what we had here, a city attorney, a city administrator, clerk treasurer, and then the attorney and I would’ve thought of three scenarios of problems they had to solve as a council. When they were ready, we would bring them over and right before our normal council meeting, they would have their council meeting. They would do a mock council meeting, and they would solve these three areas. Then we would give them a critique after, and feed everybody pizza.”

Although they don’t have this program currently, she said she has talked to Baxter about bringing it back. “My concern was that young people don’t really care about politics unless it affects what they’re doing.”

Knauss continued, “We did fun things; the first one we had, we took a student who was not taking part in the council, but she was a really good actress in the Stage Time Theatre. We got her aside and got her to be a person that interrupted. Of course, they didn’t know anything about it, and here she just showed up, and started yelling at them about this, that and the other. It was hilarious!”

She said she also created the Mayor’s Youth Award. “Every month someone could nominate a youth for something outstanding they had done and then we honored them with a certificate at the council meeting.”.

During her mayorship, Knauss also served on a committee called the Association of Washington Cities Board of Directors for seven years, representing eastern Washington on the west side of the state. “I really felt like Olympia doesn’t understand what ‘rural’ is. The board of directors was 25 people and I often would tell them that ‘rural is not the area between Seattle and Tacoma. Come to eastern Washington and really see what rural means.’”

Regarding being a mayor of a small town, she shared,“Sometimes it’s pretty stressful, sometimes the public doesn’t understand, but you try to remain calm and just put one foot forward, and go ahead and do what you need to do. But I have always had a real heart for the citizenry. When I ran for mayor the first time, I had written on the wall, ‘Every person has worth and deserves to be heard.’ And that was one of my campaign slogans. I think that made people feel they could come in and talk to me.”

Mayor Knauss was presented with the Citizen of the Year award in 2021. “It was a big surprise,” she said. “I just thank the community. I felt their support through all the years, especially when I was mayor. So many people have thanked me for coming back and just being here. That is really rewarding. When people just care enough to say thank you.”

When asked about the benefits of being a mayor, she said, “The satisfaction of doing something that really helps your community is probably the strongest pro. I never really cared for the title. I never really looked at myself as ‘Oh, I am the mayor;’ I looked at myself as I am a servant to the people of the city.”

She also acknowledged that the salary isn’t very high, and added, “For seven-and-a-half years, I made $658 a month, gross. I think In the last six months that I was mayor before, they raised it to $1,000 a month. But you know, you really can’t do it for the money. And over the years, there has been some talk, ‘You should pay the mayor more money,’ but I really don’t want it to be a position you get in because you wanted the money. That’s just not the right reason.”

She continued outlining more of the mayoral duties and personal highlights, “There’s a lot to it; I think you have to have a heart to really embrace the community and be part of the chamber [of commerce]. I am the first mayor, the [Spokane] tribe told me, that ever went down to Wellpinit to meet with the tribal council and introduce myself and say ‘How can we work together?’”

She also relayed that she attended everything she could, and that she “never turned down an invitation to speak or to attend.” When asked if she ever felt nervous speaking, she replied,“I never speak with notes. I know what I need to talk about and I just speak from the heart. I think that resonates with people. They don’t want fancy words; they just want to know you as a person, and whether they can trust you or not.”

When asked about how she dealt with criticism, she shared that, “It takes awhile to earn the confidence that you know what you’re doing.” She said, “Once you have that confidence and you have the confidence of the people, that they may not agree with you, but you’re always going to listen to them, I think that’s something that’s important. There’s been people over the years that haven’t liked me. You just have to treat them like people; I have never struck back at anyone. You’ve just got to take it. You have to keep the main thing the main thing, which is serving the city, and don’t get side-tracked by petty arguments or gossip that’s out there.”

Reflecting on if she will return again at some point, Knauss replied, “This is it. I am 81 years old.”

She is looking forward to spending more time with family now. She has three children, 13 grandchildren, and eight great-grandchildren. “During the time I stopped being mayor and before [becoming mayor], I was an avid quilter. I quilted a lot, so hopefully I will get back to that,” she said.

She added, “My main advice is to remember who you’re serving. You’re not serving yourself. You’re not serving a business. You’re serving the citizens of the city.”