Lindsey selected as Sheriff

WALLACE — There's a new Sheriff in town, but she's anything but a stranger to Shoshone County.

Following the retirement of Sheriff Mike Gunderson earlier this month, the Shoshone County Board of County Commissioners selected longtime Undersheriff Holly Lindsey to take the reins Monday morning and serve out the remainder of his term.

Sworn in at the courthouse in Wallace, Lindsey took the oath to a room full of supportive family, friends and colleagues.

"It's surreal," she said of the appointment. "I feel like I'm watching it from above and watching somebody else with their life. I never thought this would happen and here it is."

Born in Grangeville, Lindsey spent most of her life in the Silver Valley.

She lived in Rose Lake from first through third grade. After her parents divorced when she was in middle school, Lindsey moved back to Rose Lake with her mom.

Lindsey said she had a lot of fun growing up in Shoshone County.

Calling themselves "the Ridge Runners" on Tamarack Ridge, she recalls many days of getting up early and enjoying the many outdoor activities that the area provides such as biking and swimming.

"I loved it," she said of her childhood in the Silver Valley. "The people here are great. I still have tons of friends that I grew up with that I see everyday — in a good capacity or a bad capacity. I loved that we had access to Spokane and Coeur d'Alene, but we were a small community."

Lindsey was drawn to law enforcement at a young age, as her father had worked in the trade her entire life — even working for SCSO as a St. Joe region deputy.

"I grew up around law enforcement," she said. "Everything was law enforcement in my house. We celebrated holidays on different days because dad had to work. I grew up around uniforms and it was just a natural progression."

At 17 years old, Lindsey got pregnant and went to live with her aunt and uncle, Kay and Milt Turley, in Post Falls. It was at that time that her uncle Milt, who was an instructor at North Idaho College, suggested she enroll in the North Idaho Law Enforcement Academy.

After obtaining her GED, she enrolled in the program and was three credits shy of graduating before she had to leave school to work.

Her first experience with wearing the uniform was with the Coeur d'Alene Police Department, where she interned during her time at NIC and then reserved with them as a bike cop — patrolling downtown Coeur d'Alene.

"It was a blast and my legs got really muscular," Lindsey said with a laugh.

A little while later, she got a job working security at Kootenai Medical Center. After a couple years there, she would end up speaking with then-SCSO Detention Captain Rick Smith about a job out in Shoshone.

It was in 2004 that Lindsey joined up with SCSO, starting out as just a standard patrol deputy, and would work her way up the ladder. That path to the top certainly didn't come without its difficulties.

"I honestly never thought I was going to make it in law enforcement," Lindsey said. "Emotionally, seeing other people suffer, it hits me really hard…it's hard to go home every night knowing that there's so much going on that the majority of the people don't know about."

Overcoming these initial hesitancy and confidence issues, Lindsey began to get into the groove of things.

She pointed to former-Undersheriff Rod Plank as the person who mentored her and encouraged her to seek more responsibility.

In 2009, Lindsey was promoted to Patrol Sergeant and served as the School Resource Officer for Kellogg High School.

"When I started doing sergeant duties, that's when I started just really being passionate about my job because that was what I did really well at," she said. "I love working with my team and you get to watch people come to work here and blossom."

Over the course of 18 years at SCSO, Lindsey would hold the ranks of Sergeant, Lieutenant, Captain, Undersheriff and now Sheriff.

With just over 24 hours of being Sheriff under her belt, Lindsey is looking forward to not only picking up where Gunderson left off, but also forging her own path.

"Sheriff Gunderson left us with some projects that we are still working on. Essentially, everything that he wanted to accomplish is what I am going to strive for and more."

While Lindsey isn't ready just yet to discuss the details of those projects, one of her main priorities is continuing to build relationships with the community.

"It's really important for me to have our community see us as people and not just cops. If they know us as people, then we can make those connections stronger."

Lindsey is confident that the 18 years she has spent at SCSO has prepared her for this role, as she has had plenty of time to learn from others and learn from mistakes.

"When I first got sworn in as a deputy, I raised my left hand, the wrong hand, and I was super embarrassed. Then for roughly the first year and a half, I spelled sheriff wrong — with two r's instead of two f's. I was thinking the other day of how when I came into this, I knew nothing about service. Almost two decades and now I know what it's about. It's about our community."

If becoming Sheriff wasn't impressive enough in itself, Lindsey is now also the very first woman to hold the position of Sheriff in Shoshone County's history.

Excited to be attacking the issues of the county head on with the support of her wife, Rachael Clark-Krusemark, Lindsey, now 45.5 years old, plans to hit the ground running and start seeing how her team will work together.

"I already have big shoes to fill with Sheriff Gunderson," she said. "I think there's some people out there who might doubt a female in leadership and I hope to prove them wrong.

Lindsey will serve out the remainder of Gunderson's current term, which ends in January 2025. She also plans to announce her undersheriff within the coming weeks.

The primary election for the position of Shoshone County Sheriff will be held in May 2024 and the general election in November of that same year.