SARAH CHENOWETH
LEADERSHIP * EXPERIENCE * IDEAS
My name is Sarah Chenoweth and I’m running for re-election to the Pittsburg City Commission to ensure that the progressive momentum we have right now in our community continues. I have served on the Commission since 2018 and I have so much more to offer. We have such an amazing community here in Pittsburg—there’s honestly no other city in Kansas I’d rather live in—with a great city staff and leaders throughout the community who are willing to step-up, however often it takes, to make sure everyone is moving forward together. I’ve lived in Pittsburg for around 14 years now and have had the opportunity to see how much our city has changed for the better in that time, and I remain committed to seeing that progress continue.
I grew up just down the highway in Baxter Springs, where I was raised primarily by a single father with a lot of help from my grandparents. My dad and I lived just outside of town on pasture land we rented-out to our neighbors with horses; my grandpa always had a very large garden there, and I spent a lot of time outdoors exploring and daydreaming. I was a senior in high school when 9/11 happened, and I really feel like it shaped my world view as a young adult during that time. I began to feel drawn to public service as I saw so many people coming together, despite their personal differences, to work for the common good.
I moved to Pittsburg after graduating high school in 2002, to attend Pittsburg State University. I graduated with my B.A in English in 2006 and went on to earn two M.A degrees at PSU, one in English in 2009 and the other in Communication in 2011. During this period, I spent a lot of time doing the same things I had done as a child: exploring and dreaming. The more I understood about the power of language and the consequences of the ways in which we communicate with each other, the more I began to feel the way I had felt as a senior in high school; drawn to public service, this time with an interest towards larger issues in government and politics and how those issues affect citizens at all levels of their lives.
After graduating in 2011, I moved to Arizona for three years where I began study in a doctoral program in Communication at the University of Arizona, and ended up with a certification to teach yoga. It’s a great story—ask me about it sometime! In 2013 I married my husband, Ben Buttler from Erie, Kansas who has an M.S. in mathematics from PSU, at the Grand Canyon—our favorite place to go together. The next year we decided to move back to Pittsburg, so we bought a house near Lincoln Park and came back to our friends, family, and to a solid four seasons of weather that I had really missed.
We struggled a little at first after moving back to find adequate work—we both worked for USD 250 for a time, Ben found seasonal work at Millers, Inc., I taught as an adjunct at PSU for several semesters, and for a year I worked at Safehouse Crisis Resource Center.
In February 2017, Ben and I decided to start Pittsburg Recycles, LLC, Pittsburg’s only curb-side recycling service. We saw an obvious gap in coverage of a simple service that has become standard in so many cities across the nation. Our business has been growing ever since, expanding out to Ft. Scott and Parsons in 2019. Two years after starting, we celebrated 100 customers and moved my office out of our kitchen in to the co-working space at The Foundry at Block 22—right in the heart of downtown Pittsburg. We are proud to be members of the Pittsburg Area Chamber of Commerce. We hope to continue to grow our business and to be an asset to the Pittsburg community, as I hope to continue to be an asset to the city of Pittsburg as a member of the Pittsburg City Commission.
In addition to running our business, teaching yoga, and being involved in the business of the city, I spend as much time as I can volunteering to help those in our community who often get overlooked when we talk about big things like new housing developments, incentive districts for businesses, and major utility improvements. I am currently on the board of the local charity group SEK Women Helping Women: A Fairy Godmothers’ Fund, and am happy to have recently used money left to me upon the death of my grandparents to start an endowment fund at the Community Foundation of SEK for Women Helping Women. I am also the board of The Wesley House, Pittsburg’s food pantry and homeless services organization. Finally, I am on Pittsburg State Biology Department's Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee, a member of the local chapter of the National Organization of Women (SEK NOW), and of Pittsburg Area Young Professionals.