{"id":17181,"date":"2012-10-02T15:32:33","date_gmt":"2012-10-02T19:32:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=17181"},"modified":"2012-10-02T15:32:33","modified_gmt":"2012-10-02T19:32:33","slug":"polk-county-circuit-judge-dies-suddenly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=17181","title":{"rendered":"Polk County Circuit Judge Dies Suddenly"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>BY CYNTHIA E. ZORN-SHAW<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong> Polk County Columnist<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A pioneer in the history of the Polk County judicial system, The Honorable<strong> Karla Foreman Wright<\/strong>, passed away on Monday, October 1, 2012.\u00a0 She was 63.<\/p>\n<p>In 2000, <strong>Judge Wright<\/strong> became the first African American female to be appointed as a County Judge in Polk County.\u00a0 Later, in 2005, <strong>Judge Wright<\/strong> became the first African American Circuit Judge appointed to the Tenth Judicial Circuit, which serves Polk, Hardee and Highlands counties.<\/p>\n<p>A first-generation college graduate, <strong>Judge Wright<\/strong> graduated from Northwestern University School of Law in 1983. Last year, she was one of seven Polk County legal professionals who received a service award. They were also recognized during the 18th Lakeland Juneteenth Cultural Observance.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier this year, <strong>Judge Wright<\/strong> was awarded the 2012 Gertrude E. Rush Award by the National Bar Association. The Rush award recognizes individuals who have demonstrated leadership in their community and profession; concern for human and civil rights, and are a model of excellence in legal education and perseverance in the law, public policy and social activism.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Last week, she called in sick. During the call, she apologized to me and to the Chief Judge for being unable to handle her own docket on that day. She always wanted to do her own work. Now, that&#8217;s a special person. I will always remember her for the fine person that she was,&#8221; Court Administrator <strong>Nick Sudzina<\/strong> said.<\/p>\n<p>Funeral arrangements for <strong>Judge Wright<\/strong> were incomplete as of press time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BY CYNTHIA E. ZORN-SHAW Polk County Columnist A pioneer in the history of the Polk County judicial system, The Honorable Karla Foreman Wright, passed away on Monday, October 1, 2012.\u00a0 She was 63. In 2000, Judge Wright became the first African American female to be appointed as a County Judge in Polk County.\u00a0 Later, in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":210,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","pmpro-has-access"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/210"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17181"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17181\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}