My Life: Lawyer, Council Person, Mom, Grandmother, Carol Lewis
St. Cloud City Council person and lawyer Carol Lewis is the latest person to be feature on WJON's My Life Series. Carol grew up in St. Cloud and is the oldest of 3 children, she has 2 younger brothers. Her father was a traveling salesman selling calculators and typewriters and he owned his own business in downtown St. Cloud called Bert's Typewriter Exchange. Carol's mother was a nurse, worked at Detox for 10 years and at various nursing homes.
Carol's interests growing up included playing baseball with your brother and the neighbor kids. She fondly remembers organizing pick up baseball games. Lewis says St. Cloud was a great community to grow up in. She says she really enjoyed her grandparents taking her, her brothers and cousins to a cabin in the summer. Lewis says her grandfather taught her to fish and her favorite way to fish is drop lining.
Carol attended Apollo High School when it opened as a freshman but finished her high school career at Tech. While in high school Lewis was involved with the newspaper, the Montage. She became the editor of the newspaper as a senior. When Lewis was a senior that was the first year sports were available to girls. Carol joined the tennis team and she was proud to have lettered in that sport.
After completion of high school Lewis didn't have a clear idea as to what she wanted to do next. She went to school at St. Cloud State where her interests were history, political science and biology. Lewis chose to major in history and graduated with a degree in history with a minor in economics. Lewis met her husband at SCSU and had her 2 children at the age of 22 and 24. At the time Lewis graduated the economy wasn't great so she took a job that was available to her, as a waitress. She says waitressing taught her to prioritize which has helped her with other jobs later in life.
Lewis left the restaurant industry after a few years and took a job as the International Student Advisor at St. Ben's. She decided after that to move on to paralegal training. She worked in the Twin Cities doing that for awhile before deciding to go to law school at William Mitchell Law School which is now Mitchell Hamline. After completing her law degree she chose to open her own practice in St. Cloud which she still operates today.
Carol Lewis the politician began prior to her going to law school. She chose to run in 1997 because she felt St. Cloud School District 742 wasn't focusing on what it should be. Lewis served 2 terms before leaving because of conflicts while pursuing her law degree. She got back into politics running for the State Legislature in 2010 for house district 15B and lost by 8 votes to King Banaian. Lewis chose to run for St. Cloud City Council in 2012 and she won. She is in her 12th year serving in that role.
Lewis recently decided to declare that she would run for St. Cloud Mayor with longtime Mayor Dave Kleis choosing not to run for reelection. Lewis enjoys her busy life which now includes 5 grandchildren.
If you'd like to listen to my 4-part conversation with Carol Lewis, it is available below.