“It amazes me that I can stand up in front of 400 people and talk today,” she said.
Born into a military family in Dunkirk, New York (her father was a WWII and Korean War veteran), Packard underwent four surgeries to repair a cleft palate and was left with several missing fingers and toes. Her condition caused her to be extremely shy. “It amazes me that I can stand up in front of 400 people and talk today,” she said.
A sense of humor got her through a lot of uncomfortable situations. “If you can laugh at yourself, that puts others at ease, and so that’s how I handled it,” she said.
In Misawa, Japan, she met and married Don Packard, who was serving in the Air Force. The rest is 48 years of history. Sharing four children between them, the couple built a life that has always focused on people. “I wouldn’t be where I am and who I am if it hadn’t been for him,” Packard said.
When Packard wanted to go to college, an advisor told her she’d have to pass a typing class. “The two things that had prevented me from going to college in the first place were my fear of speech and my fear of typing. I walked in the first day, held up my hands and said, ‘This is all I have to work with. I’ll find my own method.’”
She graduated in 1981. Don had retired from the Air Force and the couple moved to Anchorage, Alaska for his civilian job at Cape Newenham, Alaska.
“I learned to be brave enough to go somewhere where I knew no one and get a job. I walked into the medical records department of what is now Humana Hospital and told the director I had bought a car and thought it was a good idea to get a job. That’s where my medical records career started,” she said.
She left Humana in 1984 to help open Charter North Psychiatric Hospital as the medical records director.
While attending college in 1979, Packard had worked as a file clerk at Belleville Memorial Hospital. She was fired because a doctor said he could not understand her speech. In 1995, she was offered a job as patient administration director at Elmendorf Air Force Base Hospital in Anchorage, but she needed to be on the Federal Register, which was closed. However, because of the incident at Belleville, a benefactor wrote a letter, and she was put on the Register. She called the progression of events “a God thing.”
At Elmendorf, Packard was awarded the U.S. Air Force Managed Care Patient Administration Civilian of the Year.
Don was transferred to Atlanta, Georgia in 1997. The Packards knew they didn’t want to live permanently in Atlanta. They landed in Prescott in April 2000, and moved to their home in Prescott Valley’s StoneRidge in 2004.
The couple became involved in politics. With Don working as a congressional staffer, Packard joined the Daughters of the American Revolution and the Prescott National Memorial Ladies, honoring veterans buried at the Prescott National Cemetery. She also became active in the local Soroptimist Club, where, she said, she really learned to stand up and speak to a crowd. She later served on the club’s board, and on the board of the West Yavapai Guidance Clinic Foundation.
In 2008, Packard joined the Prescott Valley Historical Society and became its president in 2012, supporting the organization for 10 years. The group helped to preserve the town’s historical library, planted trees, placed benches and signs in parks, and produced a yearly luncheon with programs on area history.
Packard ran for Prescott Valley Town Council in 2008 and the Central Yavapai Fire Board in 2012, losing both by fewer than 150 votes. In 2014, she ran again for the CYFD Board and won.
To increase her knowledge of the fire service, Packard attended the district’s educational presentations. She learned about the high rate of cancer among firefighters and that Workmen’s Compensation would not always cover their health care. As campaign treasurer and a close friend of then Arizona Senate President Karen Fann, Packard brought the problem to her attention. Senator Fann was then instrumental in the push for legislation that would better protect firefighters. “The bill died, but in the last hour, she literally pulled it out of the wastebasket and got it through,” Packard said.
She served on the board when CYFD and Chino Valley Fire created the Central Arizona Fire & Medical Authority to provide better fire service and economy of scale, the first such authority in Arizona to do that. During her time on the board, she also rode along with every shift in every station multiple times, because she wanted to truly know the firefighters and what they encountered every day.
In 2014, Yavapai County Dist. 5 Supervisor Mary Mallory, then a Prescott Valley councilmember, asked Packard to chair the Prescott Valley Healing Field of Northern Arizona. She did so for eight years.
Her involvement in her community, Packard said, “is really all about customer service.” Looking back, she said she feels her life, in many ways, has been divinely guided. “God always moves, and it isn’t always on our time!” QCBN
By Heidi Dahms Foster, QCBN
Photo courtesy of Blushing Cactus Photography: Darlene Packard (right) received the prestigious Heritage Award from the Prescott Valley Chamber of Commerce at its annual banquet, presented by board member Diane Tenison.
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