Glamour Magazine names Anchorage attorney ‘Mom of the Year’

When 25-year-old DuPree Walker of Anchorage saw the call for nominations online for Glamour Magazine’s first ever “Your Mom of the Year” award, she immediately thought of her own mother, who she compares to the Energizer Bunny for the amount she’s able to get done in a day, even before heading to work at her downtown family law practice. Walker typed up a 364-word nomination, clicked submit, and forgot about it.

A month later, in September, while Walker was waiting for her international trade law class at George Washington University to begin, she received a response she at first thought was spam: Out of thousands of applicants across the country, her mother had been selected.

Glamour has selected about a dozen trailblazing women every year since 1990 to receive Women of the Year awards. But this year, the magazine gave out the inaugural “Your Mom of the Year Award,” meant to honor a woman outside of the national spotlight — a woman “who doesn’t have a Pulitzer or an Oscar, who hasn’t met the President or been interviewed by Oprah,” the magazine said in the nomination form. They wanted to recognize a mother “who’s made a difference without Hollywood connections, without millions of social media followers, without millions in the bank to fund her cause.”

This year, it was Walker’s mom: Anchorage attorney Lynda Limón.

That meant on Oct. 8, Limón was honored on the red carpet in New York City, beside some of the nation’s most influential and well-known women, including model and actress Pamela Anderson, Olympic gold medalist Suni Lee, and Tina Knowles, mother of Beyoncé.

‘You have to pay it forward’

On a recent fall day, Limón, 58, had a court appearance at the Nesbett Courthouse in Anchorage.

Her client, a mother, had stopped receiving mortgage payments from her ex-spouse, and Limón was there to ask the judge to uphold the court’s prior order that required such a payment.

“First of all, I’m not at all perplexed about this,” said Limón, after the opposing counsel asserted the order wasn’t clear. “This order says that … (he) should pay, and he should pay ...”

Ultimately, the judge agreed.

Limón, a second-generation Mexican American, grew up in Wyoming and was the first in her family to go to college. She attended law school at the University of Wyoming, where she met her husband, Herman Walker, now a Superior Court judge in Anchorage.

Much of Limón’s work as an attorney for 30 years, and a mother for 25, has been in empowering people, and especially women.

“I take very seriously the struggles that people have when they’re ending their relationships, and really try to assist them to get their power back,” Limón said in an interview. “We tend to see as a society more of (a need for) that in women than in men, and that’s why I was so passionate when I was raising two girls. I wanted to raise these strong, confident, self-sufficient girls, who turn into strong, confident, self-sufficient women.”

Part of Limón’s success in raising her two girls, she says, has been from enlisting the help of others.

Her mother Helen moved to Anchorage in 1995 to help manage Limón’s office. When DuPree was born in 1999, Limón would keep her in a mobile bassinet and wheel the child to her mother’s desk when she had a court hearing.

“It totally takes a village,” Limón said.

That’s the same attitude that’s informed Limón’s mentoring work: Nobody should do this alone.

Since the early ‘90s, she’s volunteered annually for the Color of Justice in Anchorage, a two-day program for high school students interested in law put on by the Alaska Native Justice Center and the Alaska Court System.

For a decade, she also taught a women’s divorce education class to give women the basics on what to expect in divorce and custody, what the law is, and how to navigate child support. And each August, she travels back to Wyoming to teach a course in trial skills at her alma mater.

“You have to pay it forward,” Limón said.

“We’re all just kind of obsessed with her,” said attorney Devin Morse of Morse Khimani & Eniero, who recently moved into Limón’s shared office space. Morse said that Limón has helped her learn about everything from how to truly connect with clients, to how to dress.

Not only does she stand out in court for being “the smartest person in the room,” but also for dressing outside of the attorney prototype, Morse said. At the recent court appearance, in contrast to the suited opposing counsel, she wore a colorful floral maxi dress and cowboy boots.

Limón said her job working with families through their dissolutions magnified what she already knew: how parents’ behavior influences their children, and how healthy relationships are key.

“Realizing that as I raised kids, that even though I am in an intact family, whatever I do, whatever Herman does, whatever we allow in their world, is critical to how they’re going to be raised,” she said.

So Limón led by example, setting goals for herself, and then completing them.

First, it was competing in her very first triathlon, the Gold Nugget, at 40 in 2007. Later, it was going back to night school for two master’s degrees at Alaska Pacific University. Then, it was completing the Lava Man triathlon every year in Hawaii. For her 50th birthday, Limón ran an ultramarathon and also that year trained and competed in two more Ironman triathlons, and one half Ironman, that same year.

Meanwhile, her daughters said she always maintained her “sacred” morning routine of waking up early to go on a run with the family dog, then make avocado toast, before her family awoke.

“She is one of the most determined women, and people, I’ve ever met,” said her other daughter, 24-year-old Lucero Walker.

“Every single time we’re at the finish line. It doesn’t matter how long it takes her, she’s finishing with a massive smile,” Lucero Walker said. “I remember once at the end of a race, she quite literally had hypothermia, her lips were blue, and she was smiling across the finish line.”

‘My mom is on the same level’

At the Glamour awards ceremony in New York City earlier this month, DuPree Walker stood in a silky red dress beside Limón in a sequined gold gown, on the red carpet. Former supermodel Brooke Shields interviewed each of the dozen women of the year beside her own daughter, Rowan Henchy.

“Everything I am is because of her,” DuPree said when Henchy asked why she nominated her mom. “I wouldn’t be here, doing the things I’m doing, if it weren’t for my mom.”

During the event, DuPree said it felt “surreal” to have her mother honored on the same stage as her idol Beyoncé's mother, Tina Knowles.

Beyoncé herself was also there, and DuPree and Limón managed to snag a selfie with her after the event. “I’m not someone who gets starstruck at all,” DuPree said afterwards. “But it was Beyoncé.”

That night, they also met Olympic runner Allyson Felix, and Kansas City Chiefs player Travis Kelce’s mother, Donna Kelce, and sat behind Vogue Editor in Chief Anna Wintour and musician Billie Eilish, who DuPree said her mom “of course, didn’t know who she was.”

“The whole point of the Mother of the Year Award is that there are women who don’t receive special recognition that are equally impacting their community and people around them,” said Lucero Walker, who was also in New York as her mother received the award.

“It’s very beautiful that they were rubbing shoulders with these iconic figures, and my mom is on the same level.”

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly said the Glamour Women of the Year red carpet event took place on Oct.11. It was held on Oct. 8. Additionally, an earlier version misidentified the race lengths Lynda Limón ran the year she turned 50. She ran an ultramarathon, two Ironman triathlons, and one half-Ironman, not two Olympic-length triathlons and a half-marathon.