By LISAG. CURRIE

By LISAG. CURRIE

Rappahannock News Staff Writer

Linda Coit wanted to work in Rappahannock County.

Leaving behind a financially secure job in Fairfax, the thenLinda Postelle became a bookkeeper in Amissville.

“I worked for an accountant,” she said, a petite woman with fair hair, she seems a young girl sitting behind her huge office desk in her present office, located in the rear portion of Frank Reynolds’ law office in Washington.

That was 1985. By 1988, Ms. Coit was ready to try her hand at her own business.

With experience as her guide, as well as several courses from Northern Virginia Community College in Manassas, she opened the doors of her office and remains one of the few women bookkeepers in the county.

“I just wanted to work in Rappahannock,” the county she had called home since 1976, she said with a wave of her hand.

Most of her clients are local, small businesses.

Her office is white and bright. Her only companions are two computer screens staring above white keyboards. The large rectangular desk is neat and organized, papers filed and categorized to one side.

“I did not want to commute and I wanted to make a living in Rappahannock,” she said with a smile.

Word of her bookkeeping services spread around the county.

Her first clients were Ki Theatre and Trapezoid. Now, nearly three years later, she has 12 clients.

Expanding her business, Ms. Coit has taken on an assistant, bookkeeper Keri Roszel of Hume.

“She takes care of two clients,” Ms. Coit said, adding her assistant’s help enables her business to grow.

“It was all word-of-mouth,” said Ms. Coit, adding people were “anxious and eager for bookkeeping services.”

Working full-time, dividing her time between office hours and hours spent with clients, Ms. Coit’s work ranges from lawyers and doctors to organic gardners