After graduating from the University of Nebraska law school in 1992, Patti Boyd scored a prestigious job with a large white-shoe law firm in Kansas City. It would have been the envy of any young lawyer, to launch their career from the heights of such a gilded perch.
Plus, she was picked to work in the securities department at a time when the economy, still gorging itself on the excesses of the 1980s, was awash in public offerings.
“It was fascinating, high-level work,” remembered Boyd of her time at Watson Ess Marshall & Enggas. “I loved the job, loved my colleagues and loved working in that environment.”
And she was good at it. But the hours were long. The stakes were high. The pace was hectic. And the frantic demands of that sort of high-level job precluded, in some ways, the promise of a fuller life.
“And so after a couple of years, I started to realize that you either did that or you had a life. You didn’t do both.”
But while in Kansas City, the young lawyer met and fell in love with another young lawyer — her future husband — Mark Boyd.
After much “soul-searching,” recalled Boyd, the pair decided to trade in their big-city lives for a future in Mark’s native rural Moran.
It was their intention, at that time, to forge for themselves new careers, too. Mark became a history teacher, a course he’s charted without interruption at Iola Middle School for more than 20 years. He even allowed his law license to expire, said Boyd, and has never looked back.
But the law exerted a more adhesive force on Boyd’s life. Soon after arriving in southeast Kansas, the Nebraska native became the assistant county attorney in Bourbon County, where she developed an abiding interest in juvenile law. Next, she worked for a couple of years in private practice in Fort Scott, before eventually assuming the role of district judge pro tem.
“I did that for several years,” explained Boyd. “And then — I decided I wanted to have my kids and stay home.”
Which she did. At least for a while.
“You know, I tried to get out of law,” laughed Boyd. “Obviously, it didn’t work. … Somehow I started accumulating all of these municipal court judgeships. I’m in eight towns at the moment.
“You want the list?” she asked in an interview with the Register on Thursday, not long after signing on to replace Thomas Saxton as the municipal court judge in Iola. “OK — I am currently judge in Moran, Humboldt, LaHarpe, Savonburg, Uniontown, Bronson, Gas. And now: Iola.”
BUT SHE didn’t enter her freshman year at the University of Nebraska with the idea of becoming a lawyer. The oldest of three girls, Boyd grew up in a little town in the Sandhills region of north-central Nebraska with her sights set squarely on broadcast journalism.
“When I was in high school, I worked at this little radio station that was basically” — Boyd raises a cupped hand over her head and says, in stentorian tones — ‘the Voice of the Sandhills.’
“Actually, it was super fun, and one of those jobs that you get when you’re 14 and realize later that it was the best job you’ve ever had.”
In college, Boyd, having declared herself a journalism major, picked up work at a variety of radio stations around Lincoln. “But radio was starting to change then. It was starting to get less localized; there was more hooking up with satellites. … When I was in small towns, local news was still a very significant thing. They still had reporters that went out and covered things. And we still did live broadcasts. But it was starting to change in the ‘90s; radio was becoming more background noise and less about the heart of the community.” (Boyd is quick to exempt Iola’s own KIKS-FM from this trend. “They’re great.”)
“These are fun things to do,” Boyd realized as her undergraduate years were careening to a finish. “But they are also things that do not pay well.”
And so like millions of young people, before and since, who wobble on the fence of an uncertain future, Boyd wisely decided: “OK, I’ll go to law school.”
Boyd’s palpable intelligence and orderly mind are belied by her effervescent personality and immense friendliness, which make her a widely liked fixture in the community.
“You know how it is in small towns,” said Boyd who serves on the local hospital board and who, amongst much else, is the dance coach at Marmaton Valley High School, “I guess most people around here already know me.”
But that doesn’t interfere with her application of the law.
“You have to be pretty good at compartmentalizing, saying: At this time I’m doing this job and I’ve got to look at the situation as neutrally as possible. … And I think the nice thing about small towns is that people do sort of sit down and say, ‘OK, she’s in this role now.’ Even if I’ve had a dancer, somebody I’ve coached, come into court, I’ve felt entirely comfortable being the judge in their case. I know we know each other, but I’m making this decision and here we go.”
But there’s nothing in Boyd that wants to introduce more distance between herself and those who appear in court than is strictly necessary. “For instance, I don’t wear a black robe. I just wear my regular clothes. Like what I have on now. … Somebody in Humboldt told me that they thought it made me seem more like a real person up there making decisions, and that they appreciated that. So that may be something that is different in Iola compared to how it was before. But, of course, I’ve still got my gavel,” laughed Boyd. “And am not afraid to use it.”
“I SPENT a lot of time in my late-40s wondering what it was going to be like this year when I turned 50. I never felt that way about any of the other big birthdays. I think this came along at the right time. See, you can always, at any time, look back on where you’ve been and what you’ve done and say, ‘Hey, I’m going to do something new.’ But the goal, I think, is to bring all that you’ve learned along the way into this new thing. It keeps life exciting.”
