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With the resignation of Sharon Dunphy on March 1, Sara Champion has been elected president of the Ridgefield Historical Society by the unanimous vote of its board. Ms. Dunphy has assumed the role of first vice president.
“These are challenging times for us all,” said Ms. Champion, “and our mission to preserve Ridgefield’s history is no less important. For example, right now, in addition to virtual programming, we are collecting material about how our town is reacting to this historic pandemic and researching how past outbreaks have affected our town.”
Interested in history and genealogy, Ms. Champion is a former corporate attorney, a graduate of Duke University and the New York Law School, who specialized in executive compensation. Before her law career, she worked as a Russian linguist for the National Security Agency and taught Russian at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, Calif. She earned an M.A. in Russian at the University of California at Davis and continued to work for the U.S. Government in San Francisco and New York City. She moved to Ridgefield in 2004 and retired in 2012. She remains licensed to practice in New York and Connecticut.
In Ridgefield, in addition to her work with the Historical Society, she is a director and vice president of the Keeler Tavern Museum and History Center and a member of the town Graveyard Restoration Committee.