Austin Knox
Trustee Austin Knox is a Fort Wayne native who has been working at the Wayne Township Trustee Office since January of 2015. On Friday, January 10, 2020, he was unanimously elected trustee at a caucus of Democratic precinct committee leaders of Wayne Township.
Austin Knox has a thorough knowledge of the Wayne Township’s trustee operation having hired in as an investigator and then being promoted twice, first to Director of Support Services and then to Chief Deputy Trustee under Richard A. Stevenson. Before that he worked in special needs at Fort Wayne Community Schools while finishing his degree in political science.
Trustee Knox graduated from Concordia Lutheran High School in 2010 and then went on to study at Trine University where he played wide-receiver for the Trine Thunder. After experiencing his third concussion he made the difficult choice to give up football and focus on his studies. He transferred to and then graduated from IPFW in 2015.
Sports and education have formed Mr. Knox’s approach to his work at Wayne Township. Born to Ron and Karen Knox, both public school educators, Austin and his siblings Arin and Andrew grew up immersed in learning. Grandfather Tom Knox was a well-known basketball referee in Fort Wayne who instilled sportsman-like values in his grandchildren. The sports background is reflected in Austin’s team-building approach to his supervision of the Wayne Township staff.
As someone who came up through the ranks, Mr. Knox is respected for his fairness and his deep understanding of the work done at the township. In his first staff meeting as trustee, he emphasized that every employee is equally valuable to the operation and deserves the same respect as every other employee. As deputy trustee, he was also known for his willingness to pitch in wherever help was needed. For example, to save the township money he led a team of staff and workfare members who did much of the manual labor tearing out and replacing the well-established shrubbery along the north face of the township office building.
Mr. Knox, like his predecessor, is detail-oriented and fueled by a desire to research and understand the law and the Indiana Township Association guidelines before finalizing decisions.
Most of all Trustee Knox cares about the people of Wayne Township, both those in need and those who help. “We first want to help those who need it, but we also never forget that it is taxpayer’s money we are responsible for,” he says.
SuzAnne Runge – Director of Communications, Wayne Township Trustee Office
While I love to travel and have visited locations around the United States, Europe and South America, I see, after writing this bio, that I am someone who is firmly grounded in my hometown, Fort Wayne.
My parents lived in an apartment in the West Central neighborhood when I was born, and I have been attached to that area ever since. I studied at the Fort Wayne Art School when it was located on West Berry Street, and I lived in several apartments in that neighborhood over the years I was a student. I still trek the West Central Neighborhood walk each fall to enjoy the colorful nature and art of the area.
I continued my studies in English, German and History at Indiana University – Fort Wayne and graduated with a degree in Political Science. I put that education to work in my career working at several levels of local government—running the Fort Wayne and then New Haven License Branches, managing the Allen County Voter Registration Office and most recently directing the Communications Department at the Wayne Township Trustee Office.
I am interested in local history which I have written about in the History of Allen County and elsewhere, and I take advantage of our world-class genealogy department at the Allen County Public Library to learn about that and my own family’s background.
My first ancestor in Fort Wayne came here on a canal boat now replicated by the Sweet Breeze, currently running on our Three Rivers throughout the summer. At that time, Allen County had a whole community of people who continued speaking their native German and reading the locally published German newspapers all the way until the United States went to war with Germany in the early twentieth century. That’s when local Germans began trying to hide their identity by changing the names of their banks, athletic clubs and other institutions and speaking only English in public. In my research I saw that some local Germans actually began reporting Americanized last names to the census takers then.
These days I am busy with my family, my job, my two dogs (Havanese and Border Collie) and my recent avocation—scouting out and arranging the flowers for St. Louis Besancon Church in eastern Allen County. This is an adventure for me that feeds my love of the plants, flowers and the natural beauty of our surroundings.
I like writing for your paper because of its focus on good news about my home town. I report on the happenings at my workplace, the Wayne Township Trustee Office where Austin Knox, is the current trustee. I appreciate my good fortune to work for Trustee Knox, another Fort Wayne native, who brings youth, energy and a team spirit to WTTO. He makes it a fun place to work, and I like reporting on that to the Waynedale community.
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