Chelsea Woman, a Former Truckdriver, Wins $40,000 a Year To Bring Legal Help to Rural Women >

Chelsea Woman, a Former Truckdriver, Wins $40,000 a Year To Bring Legal Help to Rural Women >

Wynona Ward of Chelsea has been awarded a prize worth $40,000 a year for three years to support her efforts to bring legal service to poor, rural women and children.

Ward, for 15 years a long-distance truck driver before graduating from Vermont Law School in 1998, won a 2000 Lyndhurst Prize from the Lyndhurst Foundation of Chattanooga, TN.

Previous winners of the prize have included award-winning author Alice Walker, and a wide range of individuals working within the fields of the arts, education, the environment, and community service.

Ward's independent legal project, Have Justice-Will Travel, is bridging the geographical, cultural, and legal gaps that exist for Vermont's battered women and their children. Have Justice-Will Travel is bringing legal services to the back roads of rural Vermont, providing in-home consultations and direct legal assistance for low-income Vermonters who are victims of domestic violence.

Ward represents clients in cases of abuse, divorce, custody, visitation, and child support. Her activities also include lending her expertise and insights to domestic violence forums across the nation.

Ward was selected in 1998 as a National Association for Public Interest Law (NAPIL) Equal Justice Fellow, which provided the initial funding for Have Justice-Will Travel.

A native Vermonter who grew up in an abusive home, Ward, 48, is in a unique position to provide battered women and their families with legal representation and to provide referrals for other needed advocacy services. Using her central Vermont home as a base office, Ward travels throughout the state with her "office on wheels."

Her four-wheel drive vehicle is furnished with a CB radio, scanner, and cellular phone, as well as a laptop computer, printer, and transportable files. Ward is quite at home on the road, having worked for 15 years as a long-distance tractor-trailer driver before entering law school.

Ward received her J.D. degree from VLS in 1998 and was the recipient of the law school's Maximilian W. Kempner Award. She was singled out as the 1998 Outstanding Law Student of the Year by Who's Who: American Law Students.

The Lyndhurst Foundation had its beginnings in the broad local and regional philanthropic activities of Thomas Cartter Lupton, a pioneer in the Coca-Cola bottling business.

The foundation awards a prize to select individuals who have made significant and distinctive contributions in the arts, particularly writing and photography, and in community service and leadership. Said Vice President Benic M. Clark III, "We seek to honor gifted and imaginative individuals who can make a difference."

The prize is given solely at the initiative of the board of trustees, never in response to application, requests, or nominations.

In addition to Ms. Ward, this year's winners include Stephen Bright of the Southern Center for Human Rights, a legal advocacy group based in Atlanta; Ira Glass of "This American Life" and National Public Radio; Ellen Goodman of The Washington Post; and John Sayles, a noted author, director, and screenwriter.

—By M. D. Drysdale