'Ranking member'

Kathy McDowell is a survivor.

The 68-year-old McDowell is the last active member from the three-member Shelton City Commission, and hence the longest serving member of the seven-member Shelton City Council.

"My heart is in the community," the Shelton native said. "I love this community, and I want to see it thrive."

McDowell's council term is up at the end of 2023, and she's considering running for another term even while living with Parkinson's disease. She said she has projects she wants to help complete, including her pet project: the basketball and pickleball courts that will be created in the parking lot next to the Shelton Civic Center, in a collaborative effort with McDowell's group, the Shelton Centennial Lions Club.

McDowell's independent spirit was on display last week at a council work session addressing 38 downtown trees whose growing roots are damaging sidewalks. While four species of trees are recommended for replacement, McDowell instead suggested the city purchase pink dogwoods because she's seen how it brightens the City of Chelan. When it was suggested the downed trees be cut up for firewood, she countered that the wood could be given to local artists to carve works for display downtown.

McDowell was born in Shelton at the old Mason General Hospital on Birch Street, the youngest of four children. Her father built roads for the Simpson Lumber Co.

When McDowell was in the fourth grade, her mother joined the work force at a pellet factory that was housed in the current headquarters of the Shelton-Mason County Journal; later, she worked for the Brenner Oyster Co.

McDowell grew up on Lake Isabella and attended the old Bordeaux Elementary School - where she remembers disliking the square dancing in the basement - and Shelton Junior High. At Irene S. Reed High School, she sang second soprano in the school choir.

And what were her plans following her 1972 graduation?

"I had a ring on my finger," she said with a smile.

McDowell and her husband Mike married a couple months after she graduated and in August will celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary. The couple moved to Bellingham so Mike could study recreational and park management at what was then Western Washington State College.

McDowell attended cosmetology school and worked for a few months in the field. Then came their four children: Amy in 1974, Sarah in 1977, Samantha in 1983 and Josh in 1986.

The McDowells moved back to Shelton in 1978, and have been here since. Mike worked as a park ranger at the Simpson Recreation Park on Mason Lake, then in a mill and finally for Skookum Lumber.

Starting in 1998, McDowell worked with groups renting space at the the Shelton Civic Center, a couple blocks from her home. She then managed teenage employees at Shelton Cinemas, and then worked as a caterer at the Governor Hotel in downtown Olympia.

Then McDowell returned to her old job at the Shelton Civic Center – and that's where she found her passion for local government. She talked to the three city commissioners about their work, and followed the city news in the Journal.

"I thought, 'I'm going to get my feet wet and get into city government,' " she said.

In November 2013, McDowell ran for a position on the Shelton City Commission and lost by 13 votes to Tracy Moore. In November 2015, she ran against incumbent Mike Olsen and won with 61.7% of the vote.

Her tenure hasn't always been smooth. In November 2017, McDowell publicly apologized for Facebook messages she exchanged with then-Mayor Gary Cronce. Under the state's Open Public Meeting Act, a quorum or majority of commission members cannot discuss city business outside of a public meeting.

McDowell said she considered resigning. Her husband and Eric Onisko, now the city's mayor, persuaded her to keep going. "I stayed and things got better," she said.

When voters changed the three-member commission to a seven-member council, McDowell and new member Kevin Dorcy joined the expanded body. Dorcy declined to seek re-election last year, leaving McDowell the lone holdout.

"We have more people to look at issues, more people to look out for solutions for us," she said.

And how does McDowell envision Shelton in a decade or two?

"I see Shelton with beautiful roads, the downtown corridor booming with small businesses, up near Walmart (are) hotels, a lot of revenue coming into the city to do new projects. A real fresh Shelton, a place where people want to come and hang out."