Deputy County Clerk Malinda Cooper is in her second go-around as a public servant.

Cooper worked for the Cooperative Extension Service for 17-1/2 years, and after a time as practice manager for Kentucky Orthopedics, she returned to the public sector three years ago to work for County Clerk Michelle Turner in vehicle registration and renewal.

In that role, she gets to see almost everybody in the community during the year.

“I like it because it’s fast-paced … and I prefer front-line working with the public,” she said. “To me, it’s amazing how they will share their personal problems and stories, and at least you feel like you’re helping them in some way, giving them your time to listen.”

Some busy workers would find that distracting or tiresome, but not Cooper.

“I can talk and work at the same time,” she said. “It’s not like they hold me up.”

For example, she said, a lady called her a week or so ago and wanted to know about her vehicle. She was dying and wanted to give it to her neighbor, and wanted to know how to transfer it in that person’s name.

“She wasn’t even in our county, but she somehow got our number, and I had a chance to say, ‘You know what, I’m going to pray for you,’” Cooper said.

For Cooper, making even a small difference in someone’s life is what public service is about.

Her boss said Cooper is ideally suited for the work.

“She’s good at what she does,” Turner said. “She’s a people person.”

The deputy’s job consists of issuing and renewing tags, transferring vehicles, issuing handicap placards, collecting taxes and working with used car dealers and salvage businesses, so when she doesn’t actually have a customer in front of her, she still has plenty to do.

It keeps her busy. The office handles thousands of vehicle transactions each year.

Just last Friday, for example, the office handled more than 500 vehicle transactions.

What they don’t do is issue driver’s licenses. That’s the Circuit Clerk’s Office, but many people don’t understand the difference.

“We get that call all day long,” she said, but it’s easy enough to steer them in the right direction.

Cooper has lived in Clark County for 45 years, since she was 10. A graduate of George Rogers Clark High School, she met her husband David while attending Lexington Community College. They have two adult sons, Taylor, 32, who is married to Michelle and has three children, Trevor, 6, Trinity, 4, and Treydon, 1; and Travis, who is 28 and single.

When she’s not processing vehicles, she helps her family on their 80-acre farm in Clark and Montgomery counties near Pilot View. The family raises beef cattle and grows corn, soybeans and hemp.

“I like to mow. That’s my stress reliever,” she said.

Cooper likes her job well enough to keep doing it for the foreseeable future, but doesn’t think she’ll be a deputy clerk for as long as she was an Extension Service employee.

“I hope not to be working in 17-1/2 years,” she said.