Lynette Boggs

Boggs is a descendant of Edward Reginald Hodgson Sr., born in Newcastle Upon Tyne, Northumberland, England in 1816.

Boggs, her siblings, and mother are direct descendants of Hodgson and a slave named Phillis, born in 1831.

The maternal side of her family has resided in Athens for more than 180 years.

Boggs is the sixth of eight children and the third to graduate from law school.

In the seventh grade she was junior high president at her school in West Germany.

Most of her childhood was spent in Germany and Italy.

In high school, she was president of her sophomore, junior and senior classes.

Hodgson's family immigrated to the United States in 1836, settling in Illinois, and eventually making Athens, Georgia, the family home.

Hodgson and his brothers were plantation owners and carriage makers.

Among those who hosted fundraisers and/or meet-and-greets on her behalf included President George H.W. Bush, 41st President of the United States, Ambassador Alan Keyes, U.S. Senator Orrin Hatch and U.S. Congressman John Boehner.

Lynette Boggs-Perez (born 1963) is a former Republican politician in Clark County, Nevada, and Bexar County, Texas, and the winner of the Miss Oregon 1989 scholarship pageant.

She graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 1985 with a degree in business.

She worked as director of marketing and admissions at the now-defunct Merritt Davis Business College in Eugene, Oregon.

Boggs is a 1985 graduate of the University of Notre Dame where she received a Bachelor of Business Administration degree from the Mendoza College of Business.

At Notre Dame, she was a member of the Liturgical Choir and a cantor at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart on that campus.

She was twice a member of the Fighting Irish cheerleading squad.

Boggs attended the University of Oregon Graduate School of Journalism for two years in Eugene, Oregon.

In 1989, she was crowned Miss Oregon and began a two-year journalism career.

At the Eugene Register-Guard newspaper, Boggs concentrated on police and the courts.

One article she wrote for the Register-Guard was about a 1990 contestant for Miss Oregon, focusing on the fact that the contestant (Lisa Verch Fletcher, a future television news journalist) was an animal advocate.

While at the Portland Associated Press bureau, she wrote about government and contributed as a back-up sports writer.

She also covered government and the courts at the Times Record News in Wichita Falls, Texas.

She moved to Las Vegas in 1991.

Ultimately, she received a master's degree in Public Administration, cum laude, from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas in 1998.

She is a member of Pi Alpha Alpha National Honor Society for Public Administration and Public Affairs.

Boggs was appointed to a fill a vacant seat on the Las Vegas City Council on June 28, 1999.

She was elected in the Ward 2 primary election, receiving 70 percent of the vote.

Under Nevada election law, a person can be elected to a position in a primary election, without the need to run in a general election if certain conditions are met.

Boggs was a Republican candidate for the U.S. Congress in 2002, running against Shelley Berkley in Nevada's First Congressional District.

She lost, had she won she would have been the only Republican African-American female in the House.

She was featured in a Washington Post opinion piece by national columnist George Will.

On April 20, 2004, Boggs joined the Clark County Commission.

She was appointed to the position by Governor Kenny Guinn to fill the seat for District F previously held by Mark James.

She was elected to that position in November 2004, defeating Nevada Assemblyman David Goldwater.

She went by the name of Lynette Boggs McDonald for most of her political career and returned to her maiden name after a 2007 divorce.

Boggs has resided in the state of Texas since 2008 and is an honor graduate of St. Mary's University School of Law in San Antonio.

She received her Doctor of Jurisprudence degree in May 2012 and was honored by the Faculty Advocacy Committee as the recipient of the 2012 Judge Jack B. Miller Award.

She was a Dean's Scholar and served as an Associate Editor of the St. Mary's Law Journal. She received a Pro Bono Certificate at her graduation for having donated more than 700 hours of free legal services to residents who could not afford lawyers in San Antonio and on the Texas-Mexico border.

Boggs was one of 10 graduating law students inducted into the National Order of Barristers, a national organization that recognizes law students who have distinguished themselves in courtroom advocacy and appellate brief writing.

She remarried in 2017 and both personally and professionally is known as Lynette Boggs-Perez.