After 28 years as Seward County’s clerk, Sherry Schweitzer will retire on Oct. 3.
Schweitzer delivered her retirement notice to Seward County Commissioners on July 1, giving them 90 days to choose her successor. The board has yet to officially accept the retirement notice, but that will be an item on its July 8 agenda.
Seward County Commission Chair Misty Ahmic said the board will have to appoint someone to fulfill Schweitzer’s term, which ends in 2026.
Schweitzer began work in the clerk’s office more than 47 years ago and has seen the duties in the office evolve. She noted in her letter that over the years, she has issued car and marriage licenses, assisted with land documents and registered voters in those first eight years. Over the years, she has become the go-to budget manager for the county with a record of “clean” audits.
She was deputy clerk for 10 years before being appointed clerk in 1997 when the previous clerk, Delmar Maier retired.
She first ran for election in 1998 and has been re-elected seven times.
Schweitzer will carry with her some vivid memories she included in her letter to the commissioners, including cleaning the Tamora polling place before an election after the small town unincorporated and there was no one to do that work, setting up polling places in Beaver Crossing and Cordova after a tornado hit both just two days before the election and for a time, filling the role of “fence viewer,” measuring fence lines for county.
“The variety of work in the county clerk’s office has made it a most fulfilling career,” she said in her letter.
Schweitzer has been active in the Nebraska Association of County Officers and the County Clerks, Register of Deeds and Election Commissioner Association as both a board member and committee chairs, as well as testifying before the Nebraska Legislature on behalf of those groups.
NACO bestowed its Lifetime Achievement Award on Schweitzer last December, not just because of her longevity, but also because of the way she has served the association and county government. At that time, the NACO Executive Director Jon Cannon said Schweitzer was the person people called about software programs or how a regulatory change might impact county boards or programs.
