Attorney Wins Award at Popular Women’s Leadership Colloquium

Alda L. White served as Stafford County’s chief legal adviser for more than 20 years. For her hard work, dedication, and a collection of contributions to her community, the retired attorney was awarded the Patricia Lacey Metzger Distinguished Achievement Award at the University of Mary Washington’s Leadership Colloquium for Professional Women in November.

The award is given each year to a past Colloquium participant in honor of Metzger, who taught business administration at UMW and helped found the annual event, which is now preparing for its 15th year.

White earned her law degree at Temple University and began her career as a Virginia Legal Aid Society staff attorney. Before assuming the top legal role in Stafford County, she served as both acting county attorney and assistant county attorney.

White has taught at Mary Washington and served as president of the University’s Community Advisory Committee on Diversity. She also has been an instructor for the Virginia State Bar. She has served on the board of directors of the Local Government Attorneys of Virginia and on the governing board of MediCorp Health System. She also has been president of the National Association of Civil County Attorneys and chaired the group’s Organizational Ethics Committee.

White is married to Fredericksburg Circuit Judge John W. Scott Jr., and the couple’s college-age son, Jeffrey Scott, was a participant in UMW’s James Farmer Scholars program. Named after the late civil rights activist and former Mary Washington history professor, the program is designed to help Fredericksburg-area high school students prepare for college.

Last year’s Colloquium was the first to be held at the new glass-and-brick North Building that opened in January 2007 at UMW’s College of Graduate and Professional Studies in Stafford County.

The event, which draws mid-level and senior managers, administrators, educators, business owners, and leaders of nonprofit organizations, enjoyed its largest turnout ever last year, with an attendance of more than 200. Seminars were offered on such subjects as leadership, financial literacy, negotiation strategies, and business protocol.

Former Virginia Secretary of Education Belle S. Wheelan, the first black female president of the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, delivered the Colloquium’s keynote address, I Am Woman, Watch Me Lead.