Knoxify

For inter­view #13 we present Ruthie Kuhlman who is run­ning for Seat A in Dis­trict 4.

1. Intro­duce your­self to Knoxville, who are you, and why are you running?

My name is Ruthie Kuhlman and I am run­ning for County Com­mis­sion, Dis­trict 4A. Thank you for allow­ing me to let me tell you about myself.

My par­ents, the late Tom and Joan Stone, always taught me that it is impor­tant to give back to the com­mu­nity where you live. I have tried to do that through­out my adult life. How­ever, I believe it is time to do more. That is why I am a can­di­date for County Com­mis­sion Dis­trict 4A.

I am a native Knoxvil­lian who grew up in Sequoyah Hills. I attended Sequoyah Hills Ele­men­tary, Tyson Jr. High and West High School as did my hus­band of 29 years, Rus­sell. I grad­u­ated from Sullins Col­lege and attended UTK. Rus­sell and I mar­ried in 1978 and have two chil­dren: Han­nah and Briscoe. Han­nah is mar­ried to Matt Gard and works for Tues­day Morn­ing in man­age­ment. Briscoe grad­u­ates in May at ETSU in Crim­i­nal Jus­tice. He is in the US Air Force and will depart for Iraq shortly after grad­u­a­tion. I have worked in the legal, bank­ing and com­mer­cial leas­ing fields. Most recently, I was Exec­u­tive Sec­re­tary to the Direc­tor of Pub­lic Affairs and the Deputy to the Mayor under for­mer Mayor Vic­tor Ashe, now the Ambas­sador to Poland and also I was the Direc­tor of PR and Mar­ket­ing for the Dog­wood Arts Fes­ti­val. The last few years I have been tak­ing care of a fam­ily rel­a­tive with Alzheimer’s and vol­un­teer­ing with Mobile Meals. I am also on the board of the Sec­ond Pres­by­ter­ian Preschool. My pre­vi­ous vol­un­teer work has been with Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Elder and Dea­con as well as Mod­er­a­tor for the Dea­cons at Sec­ond Pres­by­ter­ian Church, Teen Board of Knoxville, Junior League of Knoxville and for­mer board mem­ber of the Kingston Pike Sequoyah Hills Asso­ci­a­tion. My hus­band and I sup­port Knox Her­itage, Flo­rence Crit­ten­den Agency and Kids on the Block as well as Old Grey Ceme­tery. We are proud of our com­mu­nity involve­ment, and have always been proud of our com­mu­nity, but there have been changes in Knox County Gov­ern­ment that no one is proud of.

2. We think it’s bet­ter know­ing what not to do rather than hav­ing an exten­sive plan. What areas or inter­ests would ben­e­fit Knox County not to ven­ture into?

I don’t believe Knox County should con­tinue to admin­is­ter grants the way we have, we do not need to waste valu­able time on issues such as the God Amend­ment (Thomas Jef­fer­son already addressed that) and Com­mis­sion does not need to ignore expert advice on storm water or pan­der to developers.

3. What 5 things could you not live without?

Five things I could not live with­out would be God, my fam­ily, friends, open and hon­est gov­ern­ment, and the power to vote into office who we think is the best for the job.