Political Career
While she taught music and English at local high schools, sang at county fairs and worked with her husband to run a small local hotel, her marriage worsened. Andy Knutson was an alcoholic and he would often beat his wife when drunk. Nonetheless, the couple adopted an 8-year-old boy, named Terry, in 1948. (See"Soloman, John "The Cots Conspiracy " George Magazine, July 1997|date=February 2007}}
Coya began to escape her domestic problems by getting involved in local politics, serving first on the Red Lake County Public Welfare Board in 1948, chairing the county DFL committee and attending that year's Democratic presidential convention as a delegate. Eventually, the DFL party asked her to run for the state House in 1950.
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