Wolverton seeks out challenges

Linda Wolverton is part city girl and part farm girl, part right-brained aspiring novelist and part detail-obsessed accountant.

Most of all, Wolverton is always looking for new challenges.

That’s why after 11 years as Spokane County treasurer, the Democrat is running for the open District 1 Spokane County commissioner’s seat against Republican Todd Mielke.

She gets along well with other officials at the County Courthouse, although she confesses that being treasurer isn’t a high-visibility job.

“Treasurers always say that they know they’re doing a good job if they aren’t in the newspaper,” Wolverton says.

Wolverton’s sense of humor and ability to laugh at herself is on full view in her county office.

Several envelopes decorated with cartoons drawn by a disgruntled taxpayer are framed and prominently displayed. One shows a poor grandma eating straight out of a can of beans after tax collector Wolverton took her money.

“I just love these,” she says. “He’s so creative.”

Wolverton has rural roots. Her eyes tear up as she recalls deciding to have the old barn on her family farm torn down.

The dilapidated barn was becoming a safety hazard, but it was difficult to see the work of her grandfather, who homesteaded the land, come crashing down, she says.

She took photographs of the barn before it was demolished and then used some of the wood to make frames.

She gave the photos to everyone in her family.

Wolverton is the managing partner of the family farm of 360 acres of dryland wheat.

Wolverton was born in Ritzville and spent much of her childhood at the family farm. She remembers swimming in the horse trough as a young child. It was slimy, but the water was cool, she says.

Later, her uncle ran the farm while her own family moved to Moses Lake, where her father ran his own gas station.

When Wolverton had children of her own, she wanted to have plenty of space for them to run around, so she and her husband, John, a retired Spokane police officer, bought a home on 20 acres near Deer Park.

But she also recognizes the benefits of a more urban life.

She and John moved their family closer to Spokane when their sons hit middle school. That way, she says, the boys were able to participate in more activities.

Drive to succeed

It was while raising her children that Wolverton went back to school. She waited until they were school age and then squeezed in classes during the day and studying after they went to bed.

“She’d study late all night. It was a lot of hard work getting through that while she was raising kids,” says her son Mark Wolverton. He said his mom’s dedication made a huge impression on him growing up.

As a nontraditional student, she often took time to help other students, first at Spokane Falls Community College and later at Eastern Washington University.

Raising her family and working at the same time, it took Linda Wolverton 10 years to earn her degree.

By the time she graduated from college and earned her accounting certification, Wolverton was already on the job. “I was trying to catch my education up with what I was doing.”

Elected as Spokane County treasurer 11 years ago, Wolverton has worked hard to improve efficiencies. In addition to the local investment pool, she also brought her office into the computer age and improved county billing systems.

She’s a stickler for protocol, too. She never handles any of the tax payments because some taxpayers still make checks out in her name rather than to the “Spokane County Treasurer.”

Even the treasurer’s office birthday parties are a model of efficiency, with one party each month to celebrate all that month’s birthdays and a signup sheet for who will bring treats.

Spokane Transit Authority finance Director Jim Plaster says the local government investment pool has made it easier for STA to get more return on its investments.

“I think the county treasurer’s office has been very service-minded toward Spokane Transit,” he says of Wolverton’s tenure there.

A few years ago, Wolverton was out of the office for quite some time dealing with health issues. A problem with her parathyroid gland was causing her to get kidney stones and kidney infections. She now has that medical problem under control.

And now Wolverton says that though she enjoys her job as treasurer, she’s ready for new challenges.

She’s working with a friend in her spare time on a novel based on their early working days for a geological company and says she’s ready to take on the job of county commissioner.

“I love cleaning up things and making them work smoother,” Wolverton says. “I’m bored stiff right now because my office is working so smoothly.”