Thelma Knight, a longtime Littleton city activist, was “feisty, bright and politically attuned,” said Tom Machiorletti, who worked with her on mental- health issues.
A memorial service is planned at 1 p.m. Saturday at St. Timothy’s Episcopal Church, 1401 E. Dry Creek Road, Centennial.
Knight, who died Dec. 7 at her Littleton home, was chairwoman of the Arapahoe Mental Health Center in the 1980s, when Machiorletti was executive director.
“She was spunky, intuitive and astute,” he said. Knight knew when she could persuade “fence sitters” to back one of her ideas. When she “knew she couldn’t convince the hardliners, she just wouldn’t go down that road,” he said.
“She was a firecracker, but she was always dignified,” said her daughter, Joni Mae Achenbach of Monument.
But there were those times when she “put her fist on the table” to make a point, her daughter said.
“If you crossed her, you’d get that ‘don’t you do that’ look from her,” Machiorletti said.
Knight was on the Victims’ Assistance Board for the 18th Judicial District “and very interested in seeing that the system treated victims with fairness and respect,” said Libby Bortz of Littleton, who served on the same board.
Knight was very active in Democratic politics. “We never agreed on politics,” said former neighbor Gale Christy, a Republican and former Littleton city manager. “But we had plenty of over-the-fence conversations that were always friendly.” Neither changed the other’s mind, he said.
Knight also was involved in starting the Littleton housing authority for low-income residents, a paramedic program for the Littleton Fire Department and a transportation service for seniors.
“Helping people was just in her DNA,” Christy said.
Thelma Rucker was born in Berea, Ky., on Dec. 25, 1917, graduated from high school at age 15 and earned a degree in business at Ohio State University.
She married John P. Knight on Oct. 11, 1937. They lived in Louisville, Ky., where he had a fabric and interior decorating business, then in Huntington, N.Y., where he worked with J.C. Penney. Thelma Knight directed the Red Cross for New York’s Suffolk County.
They moved to Colorado when he was transferred by Penney, and he later became an associate with Wesco Fabrics. He died 17 years ago.
In addition to her daughter, Knight is survived by two sons: James Knight of Seattle and John P. Knight Jr., of Placitas, N.M. Her son Butch Knight and daughter Judy Irene Tuytschaever preceded her in death.
Virginia Culver: 303-954-1223 or vculver@denverpost.com
