Hello! My name is Dana Dowell. I was born and raised in Cottonwood and attended school here until my Senior year of High School. I enjoyed growing up here and stayed active playing girls softball, swimming at the pool, riding my bike all over town and visiting Dead Horse State Park and Peck’s Lake, when it was still open to the public. My senior year took me to Phoenix, where I graduated from Deer Valley High School. A year after graduating, I joined the Arizona Department of Public Safety as an officer trainee in Kingman. I worked with the Highway Patrol until I was old enough to attend the police academy. I graduated the police academy and was stationed in Yuma, but after getting a taste of all the police work that can be done through the academy, I decided to switch to the State Capital Police Department. After spending a year with the Capital Police I joined the Apache Junction Police Department where I served the citizens of Apache Junction for 5 years. This is where I met my husband. We were married in the Clarkdale gazebo in April of 1999. We welcomed our daughter in April of 2000 and our son in February 2002. Due to my husband working for the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office, we raised our children in the Phoenix area. I began working in the school my children attended and continued to work there for 9 years as a Para-Pro. After my kids entered high school, I took a job as a Code Enforcement Officer with the town of Youngtown. It was always our goal to one day retire back to Cottonwood. Luckily, in 2017, my husband retired from the Sheriff’s Office and became a City of Cottonwood Police Officer. With his new job we moved our family back to Cottonwood. I was hired by the Cottonwood Oak Creek School District in 2018 and served as a Para-Pro for Title 1 reading groups and special needs students, along with working as a school secretary and IEP Coordinator. My son is a Mingus Union High School graduate. Both of my children are attending Northern Arizona University, with my daughter graduating this May with a Biology Degree, upon graduating she plans on going to nursing school. I am so happy to be back where I grew up and now serving the citizens and youth of Cottonwood.