“Take a chance; with a leap of faith and hard work I think you’ll get there.”
Krista Blaisdell, a feisty young woman of just 33 years of age, is not only breaking barriers as a woman – she’s young, energized and motivated.
County Attorney has been traditionally been a position held by a man.
“I really don’t look at the male – female issue, to me it’s a matter of qualifications and I think that the honor is that the community has found me qualified to serve in this position,” said Blaisdell. “Being a female in this position, I have the ability to show young females in the community that if you work hard, and put your mind to it – you can achieve positions that have traditionally been occupied by male persons.”
The 8th Judicial District of Kansas is currently occupied by four female County Attorneys: Andrea Purvis in Dickinson County, Courtney Boehm in Marion County, Laura Allen in Morris County and Krista Blaisdell for Geary County.
“I think that it goes to show the strength of just being determined and professional and working hard,” said Blaisdell.
A native of Cuba, Kansas, Blaisdell is a self-proclaimed small town girl with big dreams.
“I remember sitting at my high school commencement speech and our speaker handed us all these little postcards and said ‘write your goals down, write your five year goals, write your ten year goals, write your lifetime goals’; and I still have that card with me to this day,” said Blaisdell.
Ambitious and goal-oriented, Blaisdell knows the influence she will have on future community leaders.
Her advice to young people: “Take advantage of the opportunities that you have in your community, that you have statewide, and if [the opportunities] aren’t there – create them, take a chance…you never know if you’re going to succeed if you don’t try.”
Young in age by many comparisons, the road to success was not easy for Blaisdell who struggled to find a legal job coming out of law school before landing in Junction City and eventually becoming the City Prosecutor, and currently the County Attorney.
“With age comes experience…but there hasn’t been any hurdles I’ve had to overcome with proving anything because I’m a female or because of my age,” said Blaisdell. “The legal profession builds off of the experiences of people that have gone before you and I think that we have such a great profession in the legal community that you have those resources to go to; we have female Justices on the Supreme Court, we have female Justices on the Court of Appeals for Kansas – there are many professional female attorneys that have gone before me that I think have paved the way and have set this up so where it’s really not a rarity for me to be in this position.”
With previous dreams of working in Chicago, or Washington D.C., Blaisdell has made herself at home – in Geary County. She resides with her husband and young daughter.