Mary Beth was born Mary Elizabeth (her full name, but always called Mary Beth by her mother and she does not respond to Mary) almost one month before President JFK was assassinated in 1963. She was the second (three girls, one boy) of four children born to her nuclear physicist father and English/Montessori School teacher turned Social Worker mother in Los Alamos, New Mexico. The town holds a unique place in history as the birthplace of the Atomic bomb. Shortly after Mary Beth joined the tail end of the baby boomer generation, the family temporarily relocated to San Diego, California, where her father matriculated at University of California San Diego earning a PhD in physics. During this period in her life, Mary Beth spent memorable times on the beach, was baptized in Hawaii, and even now her preference is to be “on a beach somewhere.” The family returned to Los Alamos in 1968 where her father worked for the Los Alamos National Laboratory for the next thirty-two years.
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Maturing years activities were ballet, swimming, gymnastics, slow pitch softball and ice skating-sounds like every activity but running. Mary Beth was a member of her high school gymnastics team, and then a cheerleader. After a short sample of college life at the University of Oregon, MaryBeth transferred to the University of Wyoming where she obtained a Bachelor’s Degree in Social Work and a Juris Doctorate law degree. For years Mary Beth has been teased that she does not look like a lawyer, and recalls the humorous comment of fellow runner Mac Gay when he discovered her vocation quipping: “and I was just beginning to trust you!”
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After getting married, and starting law school, Mary Beth’s first daughter, Kaitlin (age 27, a public health nurse in Richmond, VA) was born after spring break in her second year, and Mary Beth graduated at the end of her third year, six months pregnant with second daughter, Kelsey (age 26, a law school graduate residing in GA). The family relocated to Seattle, WA, shortly after she graduated law school, and Mary Beth worked part time doing family law. In Seattle, her third child and son, Kyle (age 24, who has a degree in history and is a bartender in Milwaukee, WI) was born not quite two years later.
After the family returned to Wyoming in 1991, Mary Beth got a full time “real” legal job with the Wyoming Attorney General, and then in 1995 became an Assistant District Attorney (ADA). She continued in that capacity, as an ADA, until 2010, most recently in Barrow County, GA, handling special victim cases (domestic violence, sexual assault, and child abuse). Returning to private practice in 2010 in Athens, GA, Mary Beth focuses on domestic relations cases, most notably being the attorney for children taken into foster care.
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Running emerged in Mary Beth’s life as a form of stress relief. Always athletic, Mary Beth started by jogging with all three of her children in a stroller. She also taught step aerobics for several years, and became a certified weight training instructor at her local YMCA. Her first race was the 1997 Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure in Wyoming. Her favorite race is the Bay to Breakers 12k in San Francisco, CA, although she is also partial to the Bolder Boulder (Co) 10k. She dabbled for a while in triathlons, but has stayed with running and has five marathons (Chicago, San Diego R&R, Ft. Collins Co., Atlanta, Boston) and 18 half marathons on her running resume. Her most loyal fan, her mother, passed away in 2008 after a two year battle with Melanoma. It was her Mother’s death that lead Mary Beth to run the 2009 Boston Marathon for the Melanoma Foundation of New England charity.