From May 2022
Lynda cares deeply about building and contributing to a thriving community on behalf of youth and future generations. Family, ancestral connections and harmony are values that she has upheld in her gardening, educational and professional pursuits.
Lynda is the descendent of the Yaqui and Tarahumara people and she is embracing a newfound opportunity to connect with her ancestral and agricultural roots. Until recent medical intervention, plant allergies had kept Lynda from the garden. She is an apartment-based grower in The Dalles, cultivating tobacco, the Three Sisters and medicinal herbs in containers this summer.
Corn, beans and squash, when grown together, complement one another. They are also three of the most important crops for many Native American communities. The beans are a nitrogen fixer for corn, a heavy feeder. The corn serves as a stalk for the beans to climb. The squash serves as a green mulch. Lynda, her brother and her nephew–all in different growing climates–will be comparing notes on their Three Sisters’ endeavors, which includes a Yaqui sweet corn.
She chose a career in juvenile justice, knowing that young people with adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are more likely to enjoy health and opportunity if they can connect to empathetic, caring adults and other support services. She spent time in San Francisco and Portland working as a probation officer and counselor in a youth health center. She has also worked as a 911 dispatcher and operations agent with an airline.
Lynda spent much of her childhood in The Dalles where her dad worked at the dam and in 2013 she returned for health reasons. She is medically retired and The Dalles offers the chance to slow down and guard her health. Recently, she has also taken on a role as caregiver to her father who has amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, known to be more common in military veterans.
As a lifelong learner, Lynda has studied liberation theology at Gonzaga University and has also taken anthropology and sociology courses at Eastern Oregon University. Currently, when she is not experimenting in the garden, she enjoys creative writing and poetry, watercolor painting, sewing and reading.
Leave a Reply