Katherine Brooks Waddell ’56 just landed her dream job — thanks to Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe. He recently tapped Waddell to be Special Advisor to Levar Stoney, the Secretary of the Commonwealth, focusing on women’s outreach issues. “As a passionate supporter of women’s issues, I feel as if the Governor has given me my dream job, enabling me to let women know of the opportunities available for them to serve The Commonwealth,” Waddell said. “The issues that these boards and commissions address are of critical importance to all Virginia communities and families, and that’s why it is essential for women to be at the table for these discussions. Women make up over 50 percent of the population and my goal is to ensure that they are well represented in Virginia.”

Waddell, who has served as President of Women’s Strike Force, puts her considerable political and legal weight behind fighting to protect a woman’s right to make her own personal reproductive health care

decisions. As the mother of two daughters (one being Laura Waddell Custer ’83) and two granddaughters (Katherine, a St. Catherine’s senior, and Liddy, a St. Catherine’s sophomore), Waddell is unabashedly pro-choice. A lifelong Virginia Republican and strong proponent of the Republican principles of limited government, individual freedom and the right to privacy, Waddell won a seat in the House of Delegates running as an Independent in 2005. She remains on the board of National Republican Majority for Choice. Waddell deftly bridges the philosophical divide of being pro-choice and conservative, saying “to be Republican and prochoice is to be consistent. The Republican Party has historically been a party of limited government. The traditional Republican philosophy argues for less government interference in all aspects of Americans lives.” Waddell’s political hero, Susan B. Anthony, “was an independent, educated woman who sacrificed and spent her life working to gain the passage of the 19th amendment, giving women the right to vote. She also worked to afford women advancement in property rights, employment and educational opportunities, divorce and child custody laws and increased social freedoms.” Katherine Waddell may well find that she herself is the political hero of hundreds of Virginia women for whose hard-earned rights and freedoms she has fought.