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Dear Editor:
I grew up in a blue-collar family in Morgan County, where I learned the importance of the values that small-town Hoosiers hold dear: family, freedom, and progress. I am the daughter of eight generations of farmers, whose love for working the land has stayed true even through hardship.
I left home to attend Indiana University as a first-generation college student. And in the throes of 9/11, I enlisted in the Army National Guard at the age of 19 and later joined Army ROTC. In the military I found what many of us are looking for: a steady paycheck, health care, a path toward retirement, and the ability to serve my country and my community.
Almost 19 years later, I am a U.S. Army Reserve Lieutenant Colonel, and I continue to proudly serve. Outside of the military, I also became a lawyer and an entrepreneur.
I’m running for Indiana Secretary of State to safeguard democracy and the freedom to vote right here at home. I have worked at all levels of government – local, state, federal, and the multi-national level with NATO. As an attorney, I’ve been Associate Corporation Counsel for the City of Indianapolis and Marion County, and Deputy Attorney General for the State of Indiana. And as a military intelligence officer, I have seen firsthand the state of democracy across the world.
In the service I met my husband, Oliver, a military intelligence Lieutenant Colonel in the Indiana Army National Guard. We are raising two sons, Owen (11) and Harrison (2), in downtown Indy. And even though we’re now city-dwellers, we’re never too far from both our families’ farms – Oliver’s in Rochester and mine in Martinsville.
Destiny Wells
Democratic Candidate for Indiana Secretary of State