Lorie Melone believes the law is her destiny. She’s a woman of action who doesn’t like to stand by when injustice is happening. Instead, she wants to improve the lives of others.
Five Things About
Lorie Melone
1.
She survived the Boulder Canyon Flood on June 9, 1972. “I was age nine. The water was rushing down the Canyon; it came out of nowhere it seemed. My grandparents, my brother and I were eating at the Big Bear and it was raining so hard. I remember seeing a yellow Volkswagon bug and other cars just floating down the river. One car had a person in it, screaming for help. A string of men made a human bridge of sorts which was used to move us from the bank by the restaurant across the creek to a hotel safely on the other side. My grandfather and I went under water at one point crossing the river.” Lorie has a fear of water to this day. She tackles the fear with adventures in snorkeling and kayaking on lakes in the Black Hills.
2.
Lorie loves cooking, quilting, and painting. She gained a love of cooking from her hard-working mother and grandmothers. She developed a love of crafts while in 4-H, and Lorie enjoys the creativity, design and relaxation she finds in quilting and painting. “I like to paint wall murals. I’ve done a couple of murals in my house. I just did it. I applied what I learned from Canvas 2 Paint and put it on a wall,” she said.
3.
While in college, in 1982, she competed in the Miss Rapid City Pageant and was named Miss Congeniality.
4.
She’s a dog lover. She has two of her own – a brown lab husky mix and a German Shepherd husky mix – and dogs were part of one of her all-time favorite vacations. “I went dogmushing with a girlfriend in Alaska. That was really fun. The dogs love mushing! You stood on a sled and you mushed the dogs,” Lorie said. “I would do that again.”
5.
Lorie spent her sophomore year of high school in Italy, and that experience helped inspire a dream trip she’s planning. “I’m hoping when I turn 60 I can take my daughters and go to the Italian Riviera and go to Greece,” she said.
