Terrie Lawson seeks new area of service as Logan County Clerk

Terrie Lawson has spent her adult life in a wide variety of service roles. This week she hopes to add another by being elected Logan County Clerk.

Tuesday’s Republican Primary Election will determine who will be the county clerk the next four years, following multi-term clerk Scottie Harper’s decision not to seek reelection. No Democrat is running for the office.

“All of the candidates in this race are good people,” she says. “I feel that I bring the most experience in service leadership to be ready to lead a good staff in providing the service the people of Logan County need from this office.”

Lawson is the American Cancer Society’s Senior Manager of Community Development for a wide area of Kentucky and Indiana. In recent weeks, she has attended ACS functions in Paducah, which is near Kentucky’s borders with Missouri and Illinois, and in Ft. Wayne, which is located near Indiana’s border with Michigan. She was in Lexington Friday night for another event. All of that is in the service area she leads.

Lawson was one of only three managers among the eight who were chosen to stay in that role in 2020 when the pandemic significantly reduced donations to organizations like the cancer society. Now she and the staff of eight she manages have been able to exceed their fund-raising goal for the most recent year by hundreds of thousands of dollars.

“I have learned so much from this work that has benefited me in other aspects of life, like working with people and supervising a staff,” she says. “This empowers me to give back in other roles like the clerk’s office.”

Terrie became involved in fundraising for cancer research when her step-father, the late Dewey Wood of Lewisburg, endured a third battle with cancer. She and her husband, Pee Wee Lawson, became chairs of the Logan County Relay for Life in 2010. Their hard work and success caught the attention of ACS leaders, and she accepted a full-time position with the organization in 2011.

At the time, she had worked for the U.S. Postal Service for 17 years, rising from substitute rural mail delivery to a clerk position in the Russellville Post Office to fill-in postmaster and fill-in supervisor as needed at large post offices in the area. Covering many of the mail routes at various times gave her a working knowledge of Logan County, and the management roles provided supervisory experience.

“Most people who have been in government jobs for 17 years don’t give them up as they work toward retirement,” she says, “but when the cancer society offer came, I felt a need to use that role to help others.”

Other areas of Terrie Lawson’s service include coordinating Good Samaritan’s deliveries of food to senior citizens who couldn’t leave home during the pandemic, obtaining the donation and distribution of large volumes of detergent and fabric softener for those in need during the COVID-19 job losses, working with the Life Choice Pregnancy Center and the Center for Teens, going on a mission trip to Brazil, leading a mission effort in Oklahoma, coordinating meals for visiting volunteers who were assisting with construction following this winter’s tornados in Logan County, and assisting with the activities and services at Walnut Grove Baptist Church.

Terri and William “Pee Wee” Lawson have been married 28 years. They met while both were working at Logan Aluminum. “We decided it was best for me to leave Logan, since it’s difficult on a family for both parents to work swing shift,” she remembers.

That family includes three grown children. Kevin Saunders, who was a standout baseball player at Russellville High School, is the Todd County Sheriff’s Department sergeant at Guthrie. He is engaged to LCHS graduate Chelsea Pitts. Riley Lawson works as a stone mason with Costello Stone. He and fellow LCHS graduate Chandler Steenbergen are engaged. Daughter Landrie Lawson is also an LCHS graduate and works at Holly Tree Daycare in Russellville.

Terrie is the daughter of Barbara Wood of Lewisburg. Pee Wee is the son of Bud and Lana Lawson of North Logan.

Terrie Lawson believes serving as county clerk is a natural for someone with large-scale leadership experience and a desire to serve like her.

“I am passionate about helping people,” she says, and her life bears witness to that.