Ms. Christina Meldrum

Class of 1986
Career Pathway: Human Services

Tina Meldrum graduated as co-valedictorian. She also ran track, played basketball, was president of the Student Council and was a student organizer for the American Red Cross blood drives.

Following high school, she lived in Calw, Germany, as part of a student exchange program sponsored by the Lions' Club. She attended the University of Michigan from 1986 to 1990 and earned an A.B. with highest distinction in political science and religion. She was an exchange student in Florence, Italy, in 1988 and was a representative on the Michigan Student Assembly where she focused primarily on issues related to United States foreign policy. Tina lived and worked in Ghana in 1990 for a Ghanaian development organization doing grassroots development work.

She then attended Harvard Law School, earning a J.D. in 1994. She did public interest legal work for the International Commission of Jurists in Geneva, Switzerland, and the American Civil Liberties Union in San Francisco. She also worked for four years as a litigator for the San Francisco office of the New York-based law firm, Shearman & Sterling. She has published two scholarly legal works and is currently a full-time writer. Ms. Meldrum's first novel, entitled Madapple, is expected to be published in 2007. 

She currently lives in the San Francisco Bay area with her husband and two children and spends summers with her family at Lake Margrethe in Grayling.

Her mother, Patricia Petrie, accepted her award on her behalf.