The Shadow
Susan Elizabeth Knick has spent nearly a decade living in the Alleghany Highlands where she has worked part-time for the Alleghany Highlands Chamber of Commerce & Tourism.
Born in Waltham, Mass. in 1954, Knick graduated from Milford High School in 1972, attended Rivier College in Nashua, N.H. where she earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in political science in 1976.
Knick recalled, “My junior year in college I enlisted in the Army’s college junior program and went to basic training between my junior and senior year.”
She performed so well in basic training that the U.S. Army paid for her tuition to finish her senior year.
“At the end of basic training, I was selected to serve as active duty to finish my senior year, and the tradeoff was that I was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant,” Knick remembered.
The first place she was stationed following her graduation from RC was Fort McClellan, Ala. in 1976, where she served in the Women’s Army Corps.
From there she was deployed to Fort Benjamin Harrison in Ind., where she received training in administration and personnel.
Following her training there, she was promoted to 1st Lt. and assigned as an enlistment officer to the U. S. Army’s Command in San Francisco.
Eventually, she was sent to serve in Washington D.C. where she remained until 1981, the year she became an Army Reservist.
By 1989, she was living in Spring Hill, Fla. where she joined the Florida National Guard. Soon thereafter, she was promoted to Captain.
After returning to serve in the U.S. Army Reserves, she was sent to Honduras to perform administrative work at the U.S. Embassy.
Following her service in Honduras, she returned to Fla. for a short period of time before being deployed to Germany in the U.S. Army Reserves V Corps to help with the drawdown of military forces from Frankfort.
Having completed her service in Germany, she returned to Fredericksburg, Va. where she received her order to retire as an Army Reserves Major.
In 1995, she was hired by Mary Washington University, a public liberal arts institution in Fredericksburg.”
“I was hired as Mary Washington University’s events coordinator,” Knick remarked.
It was there that she met Rick Knick, her husband-to-be. Rick was employed as a police lieutenant, and the couple were married in 1998.
Rick, who is from the Alleghany Highlands, currently works for the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles as a motor carrier inspector.
Transferred from Fredericksburg to the Covington VDMV office in 2011, Rick has been back home for more than a decade.
Susan noted, “I joined Rick in 2016, and during the summer of 2017, I was hired to coordinate the Chamber’s summer events.”
She concluded, “Of all the jobs that I’ve had, this (working for the Chamber) is the most enjoyable one by far because I get to meet people in the community.”
Having gained more than two decades of experience in the military and more than two decades of organizational experience at MWU, Susan represents the Chamber at various events such as ribbon-cutting celebrations.
During COVID-19, the Chamber placed Susan in charge of the administration of grants via the U.S. Government’s stimulus package.
