Napavine resident Ruth Allison will serve her last days as a Lewis County clerk this week after 25 years on the job.
Allison, who grew up in Illinois, has lived all over the country and the world with her husband, who is a member of the U.S. Air Force. The couple lived in Indiana, Alaska and even West Germany before eventually moving to Lewis County to be closer to Allison’s brother.
Since taking a job with the Lewis County Clerk’s Office, Allison has worked with three Lewis County clerks, who are elected every four years, and rose to the position of senior deputy clerk.
After so many years, she has worked every aspect of the job and become a living reference book for the office, all the while developing a reputation for seeking out the most difficult tasks.
“I first met her when I became the county clerk in 2016,” Lewis County Clerk Scott Tinney said. “The one character trait about Ruth is that she loves getting assigned tasks that she can dig into. I can give her a project and she just revels that she can dig into something that maybe nobody else wants to do or can get into.”
Ruth said looking for the next challenge or the exception to the rule is what kept the job exciting and meant that she was always learning new things.
During her time at the clerk’s office, Allison has worked as a civil clerk and as a clerk to appellate courts. She also led the charge when things changed in the office; for example, the implementation of the Odyssey software, a database for court records from most counties in the state of Washington.
“Give me a challenge, yeah, and I'll do that. I'm also kind of a techie person, OK, so when we got Odyssey, I was what they called super user,” Allison said. “I was in the depths of learning it so that when we got back to the office, I could help the others do it themselves. At one point, I went over to Franklin County when they did Odyssey and helped with that there.”
Many people might not know exactly what a clerk or the clerk’s office does, but it's possible residents have already had a run-in with them. The clerks work the desks at the Lewis County Law and Justice Center, keep minutes during court proceedings, enter legal documents into the online database and, if you need to pay a fine or file a lawsuit or complaint, the clerk is your first stop.
The clerk’s office is an independent part of government that works closely with the judicial system. The office is responsible for maintaining records, exhibits and other data for the judicial system and handles all financial aspects of the courts.The office separates the judges, juries and lawyers from the records and financials to avoid conflicts of interest or corruption.
Allison said working as a clerk and so often being witness to legal proceedings has changed her life.
She always reads the fine print, she's careful of who she goes into business with and she is more appreciative of the things that go right.
“What people don't know is, what we deal with on a daily basis, is people in crisis all day long,” Allison said. “Because either they've been charged with crimes, they are getting a divorce or dealing with some sort of parenting stuff, child support, death, the state taking your kids. I mean, those are the things we deal with all day long, every day. So it can make you appreciate what you have in your own life when you're seeing all these people going through all these issues.”
Allison’s last day at work is Thursday, April 24. She said she doesn’t yet have any plans to celebrate her retirement aside from a small meeting with her colleagues.
She hopes to travel this summer, first to see her children — one in Southern California and the other in New Hampshire — and then to Europe.
