News Releases for December 2003
December 23, 2003
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Hoeven Appoints Sonna Marie Anderson To South Central District Court
BISMARCK, N.D. - Gov. John Hoeven today announced that he has appointed Sonna Marie Anderson to the South Central District Court. Anderson was chosen from a field of 14 applicants.
“Sonna brings enormous integrity and a wonderful judicial temperament to the bench,” Hoeven said. “She’s highly regarded in the community for being fair, conscientious and just, all of which are essential traits in a good judge.”
Anderson, a Bismarck native, is a 1981 graduate of the University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, where she earned her degree cum laude in business administration. In 1985, she received her J.D. from the University of Denver College of Law, with an emphasis in Natural Resource Law. While at the University of Denver, Anderson was active in establishing a Women’s Student Lawyer organization and became its founding president. She also worked for the Mountain States Legal Foundation, a public interest law firm.
After completing law school, Anderson clerked for the Honorable Patrick A. Conmy, Judge of the Federal District Court, and continued on with him briefly when he was invited to sit with the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Paul, Minn. In 1987, she entered private practice with her father, Harold L. Anderson. She purchased the firm of Anderson & Anderson from him in 1992, and still serves there.
She has served on numerous civic boards and organizations, including the Bismarck Public School Board since 1994. She has also received a number of community honors, including the Distinguished Leadership Award of the National Association for Community Leadership; the Jaycees’ Outstanding Young North Dakotan Award; and the Sertoma Club of Bismarck’s Service to Mankind Award.
“We are fortunate in that any one of the finalists would have been very well qualified to serve the people of the district,” Hoeven said. “Sonna will serve with the same distinction she has brought to her entire career.”
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