Shelton's Citizen of the Year on Bridging Divides, Community Service & the 'We Need the Village' Mindset — Tamra Ingwaldson

About this episode

Jeff Slakey interviews Tamra Ingwaldson about her experiences in community service and bridging divides in Shelton.

Jeff Slakey sits down with Tamra Ingwaldson, named the 2025 Citizen of the Year by the Shelton Mason County Chamber of Commerce. Over nearly 20 minutes, they explore what it means to truly serve a community — and what keeps Tamra showing up. Tamra shares how growing up watching her parents coach sports she wasn't allowed to play planted the seed for a lifetime of civic engagement. As a single mother of two daughters in the mid-90s, she figured out how to model citizenship even when time and resources were thin — bringing her girls to board meetings with Happy Meals and coloring books, turning every community interaction into a teaching moment. She and Jeff dig into one of Shelton's most persistent challenges: how to get factions and silos talking to each other. Tamra's answer draws on 20+ years of nonprofit work — United Way of Kitsap and Mason counties, the Home Builders Association, and now New Horizon Communities and Shelton Veterans Village. She also introduces 'The Peacekeepers,' a local group of equal numbers of Democratic and Republican women who break bread together, do service projects together, and work to prove that compromise isn't a dirty word. Plus: her philosophy…

People in this episode

Host: Jeff Slakey

Guest: Tamra Ingwaldson

Topics covered

• community service
• civic engagement
• bridging divides
• volunteering
• local politics
• family involvement

Keywords

• Citizen of the Year
• community engagement
• nonprofit work
• volunteering
• local issues
• political compromise

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Shelton Mason County Chamber of Commerce, United Way of Kitsap and Mason counties, Home Builders Association, New Horizon Communities, Shelton Veterans Village, The Peacekeepers

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