When 25-year-old DuPree Walker of Anchorage saw the call for nominations online for Glamor Magazine’s first-ever “Your Mom of The Year” award, she immediately thought of her own mother, who she compares to the energizer bunny for the amount she’s in able to. to finish in a day, even before she has to go to work in her family law practice downtown. Walker wrote a 364-word nomination, clicked submit, and forgot about it.
A month later, in September, as Walker waited for her international business law course at George Washington University to begin, she received a response she thought was spam at first: Out of thousands of applicants across the country, her mother had been selected.
Glamor has selected about a dozen trailblazing women each year since 1990 to receive the Women of the Year awards. But this year, the magazine presented the first “Your Mom of the Year Award,” meant to honor a woman outside the national spotlight — a woman “who doesn’t have a Pulitzer or an Oscar, who hasn’t met the President or been interviewed by Oprah ,” the magazine said in the nomination form. They wanted to recognize a mother “who has made a difference without Hollywood connections, without millions of followers on social media, without millions in the bank to fund her cause.”
This year it was Walker’s mother: Anchorage attorney Lynda Limón.
That meant on October 11, Limón was honored on the red carpet in New York City, alongside some of the country’s most influential and famous women, including model and actress Pamela Anderson, Olympic gold medalist Suni Lee and Tina Knowles, mother. by Beyoncé.
‘You have to pay it forward’
On a recent fall day, Limón, 58, had a court appearance at the Nesbett Courthouse in Anchorage.
Her client, a mother, had stopped receiving mortgage payments from her ex-spouse, and Limón was there to ask the judge to uphold the court’s prior order requiring such payment.
“First of all, I’m not at all confused by this,” Limón said after opposing counsel argued that the order was not clear. “This order says that . . . (he) shall pay, and he shall pay . . .”
In the end, the judge agreed.
Limón, a second-generation Mexican American, grew up in Wyoming and was the first in her family to attend college. She attended law school at the University of Wyoming, where she met her husband, Herman Walker, now a Superior Court judge in Anchorage.
Much of Limón’s work as a lawyer for 30 years and a mother for 25 has been to empower people, and especially women.
“I take very seriously the struggles that people have when they end their relationships and really try to help them get their power back,” Limón said in an interview. “We tend to see as a society more (a need for) that in women than in men, and that’s why I was so passionate when I was raising two girls. I wanted to raise these strong, confident, self-sufficient girls who will become strong confident, self-sufficient women.”
Part of Limón’s success in raising her two girls, she says, has been getting help from others.
Her mother Helen moved to Anchorage in 1995 to help manage Limón’s office. When DuPree was born in 1999, Limón kept her in a mobile bassinet and drove the baby to her mother’s desk when she had a court hearing.
“It totally takes a village,” Limón said.
It is the same attitude that has informed Limón’s mentoring work: no one should do this alone.
Since the early 90s, she has volunteered annually for Color of Justice in Anchorage, a two-day program for high school students interested in law put on by the Alaska Native Justice Center and the Alaska court system.
For a decade she has too taught a women’s divorce education class to give women the basics of what to expect in divorce and custody, what the law is, and how to navigate child support. And every August, she travels back to Wyoming to teach a trial skills course at her alma mater.
“You have to pay it forward,” Limón said.
“We’re all just kind of obsessed with her,” said attorney Devin Morse of Morse Khimani & Eniero, who recently moved into Limón’s shared office. Morse said Limón has helped her learn about everything from how to really connect with customers to how to dress.
Not only does she stand out in court for being “the smartest person in the room,” but also for dressing outside the attorney prototype, Morse said. At the recent court appearance, unlike her suited counterpart, she wore a colorful floral maxi dress and cowboy boots.
Limón said her job working with families through their breakups magnified what she already knew: how parents’ behavior affects their children and how healthy relationships are key.
“Realizing that when I was raising kids that even though I’m in an intact family, whatever I do, whatever Herman does, whatever we allow in their world is critical to how they’re going to be raised,” she said .
So Limón led by example, setting goals for himself and completing them.
First, it was competing in her very first triathlon, The Gold Nugget, at age 40 in 2007. Later, it was going back to night school for two masters at Alaska Pacific University. After that, it completed the Lava Man Triathlon every year in Hawaii. For his 50th birthday, Limón ran an ultramarathon and also trained and competed that year in two more Olympic-length triathlons and a half marathon that same year.
Meanwhile, her daughters said she always maintained her “sacred” morning routine of waking up early to run the family dog and then making avocado toast before her family woke up.
“She is one of the most determined women and people I have ever met,” said her other daughter, 24-year-old Lucero Walker.
“Every single time we are on target. No matter how long it takes her, she finishes with a massive smile,” said Lucero Walker. “I remember one time at the end of a race, she was literally hypothermic, her lips were blue, and she was smiling across the finish line.”
‘My mother is on the same level’
At the Glamor Awards ceremony in New York City earlier this month, DuPree Walker, in a silky red dress, stood next to Limón in a sequinned gold gown on the red carpet. Former supermodel Brooke Shields interviewed each of the dozen women of the year alongside her own daughter, Rowan Henchy.
“Everything I am is because of her,” DuPree said when Henchy asked why she nominated her mother. “I wouldn’t be here doing the things I do if it wasn’t for my mom.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uo-_4Q7GBk
During the event, DuPree said it felt “surreal” to have her mother honored on the same stage as her idol Beyoncé’s mother, Tina Knowles.
Beyoncé herself was also there, and DuPree and Limón managed to grab a selfie with her after the event. “I’m not one to get starstruck at all,” DuPree said afterward. “But it was Beyoncé.”
That night, they also met Olympic runner Allyson Felix and Kansas City Chiefs player Travis Kelce’s mother, Donna Kelce, and sat behind Vogue Editor in Chief Anna Wintour and musician Billie Eilish, who DuPree said her mother “obviously didn’t know who she was.”
“The whole point of the Mother of the Year award is that there are women who don’t get much recognition who impact their communities and the people around them just as much,” said Lucero Walker, who was also in New York when her mother received the award.
“It’s very beautiful that they rubbed shoulders with these iconic figures and my mother is on the same level.”
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