Here I am, preparing to attend my 50th year Pioneer High School class reunion. First and foremost, I count my blessings that I am alive and well. I share the thoughts and concerns for those of us who have lost friends that were part of our class and beloved family members. How do we find ourselves where we are today?
Having spent more than half my adult life in Las Vegas, Nevada, the term “luck of the draw” comes to mind. Really, having been blessed with loving, caring parents; growing up in the very favorable environment of Ann Arbor; and attending Pioneer with remarkable teachers and extraordinary students, I had it made.
I attended Michigan State and Michigan. Then, “luck of the draw” found me thousands of miles away from Ann Arbor finishing my under graduate work, magna cum laude and earning a Master’s Degree, magna cum laude. Then, I spent four delightful years teaching in Oregon.
Salem, Oregon is home to the oldest law school west of the Mississippi, Willamette University, College of Law. With the “luck of the draw”, I earned my Juris Docorate and was off to new challenges.
My first job in my new home of Las Vegas, NV was working for a Judge in Family Court. Rex Bell, District Attorney, “luck of the draw”, and earlier Willamette University, College of Law grad, selected me to be a Chief Deputy District Attorney supervising the Family Support Division in Clark County. With a dozen deputies (attorneys) and several hundred employees, we collected over 100 million in child support annually.
Along the way, I drew a card for a husband, a fellow attorney and Chief Deputy District Attorney named Ben. As the country western song goes, pretty soon we had a full house with a son, three daughters, and a cat…and now a daughter-law, sons-in-law and six grandbabies!
In my spare time, I became active in the local and state bar associations. I served as President of the Clark County Bar Association and am completing the Presidency of the 11,000 plus member State Bar of Nevada.
Retire…when you are having fun! Not really retired, but Ben and I took advantage of some PERS incentives and left the District Attorney’s Office. I worked for 18 months with the Legislative Counsel Bureau in Carson City. Too far from home. “Luck of the draw” finds me as the Deputy Director and CFO of the Southern Nevada Senior Law Program in Las Vegas. Ben is working as an attorney for the Nevada Supreme Court.
As often as we can, we get away to our lodge and bunk house in Oregon on 268 acres. The children and grandchildren love to go there!
I have continued community work with the Episcopal Church, Girl Scouts, and managing a rental property portfolio. Hopefully “the luck of the draw” will allow me to continue to help others and see and seek the answers to the challenges that we were presented when we drew the cards that got us through Pioneer High School.
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