SUNBURY — A former college drop-out, hairdresser and mother of four, Kymberley Best said she never envisioned becoming the first woman to serve as a Northumberland County assistant solicitor.
But the 38-year-old Northumberland resident said few of her accomplishments have been expected.
“I was a C-plus, B-minus student in school. I didn’t apply myself,” Best recalls of her high school years in the Shikellamy School District.
The daughter of Christine Garman, of Shamokin Dam, and Ray Rogers, of Northumberland, she graduated in 1988 and entered a nursing program with the aim of following in her mother’s footsteps.
Unable to attain the grades needed to set herself apart in the crowded field, Best dropped out, became a hairdresser and opened a salon.
“I still have my license,” she said with a laugh.
In 1993, she married local attorney James Best, a young intellectual who entered Bucknell University at the tender age of 13 and received a diploma at 17.
Still harboring dreams of working in the medical field, Best was encouraged by her husband to go back to school.
She enrolled at Bucknell in 1995 soon after giving birth to the couple’s first child and graduated four years later with a bachelor of arts in political science and a minor in theology.
Throughout her studies, she worked part-time as a paralegal, and in 2000, she entered law school at Widener University in Harrisburg.
“I didn’t do well in the first half of the year,” said Best, who by then was a mother of three.
Struck by the notion of having to claw her way up a corporate ladder in a large law firm, she took six months off to contemplate her career path.
Determined to finish what she started and with the support of family, including father-in-law John Reed, who is Snyder County’s chief public defender, and mother-in-law Barbara Reed, who served a term as Snyder County district attorney, Best returned to school and found an enthusiasm for law that hasn’t waned.
She received a law degree in 2004, and today, she and her husband have offices in Sunbury and Liverpool.
She says Jim is her biggest supporter, encouraging her in the new career while together raising their two sons and two daughters, ranging in age from 3 to 15.
Over the years, Best has served a year as an unpaid intern in the Northumberland County public defender’s office, worked as a defense attorney in treatment court, taught paralegal and family law courses at McCann and served as solicitor for the Point Township Zoning Hearing Board.
Earlier this year, she was appointed interim court administrator by President Judge Robert B. Sacavage while Brandy Yasenchak was on maternity leave.
Shortly after, she was approached by the county commissioners about the assistant solicitor position.
A position opened up when county solicitor Hugh A. Jones was nominated by Gov. Ed Rendell to the $80,000-a-year district judge post in Mount Carmel. Jones had held the solicitor position since shortly after the current county commissioners took office in 2008. Jones’ nomination was confirmed last Thursday by the state Senate, and the county board promoted assistant solicitor Vincent Rovito to his seat, which pays $40,311 a year.
Best said she was honored to be offered the $33,133-a-year job, but was convinced to take it after learning she would be the first female to ever serve in the county despite the fact that a majority of law school graduates are now women.
“It was one of the deciding factors, that I would be breaking the ceiling,” she said. “I feel very privileged and appreciative to be in that role.”
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