Bar Association Honors Local MADD Leader

Linda Oxenreider, president of the Ventura County chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Drivers, has been given the local bar association’s 1993 Liberty Bell Award for community service.

The award is presented by the Ventura County Bar Assn. to someone outside the legal profession who has contributed significantly to the justice system.

“This tells me that people are listening to the things that MADD and I are trying to do,” said Oxenreider, of Camarillo. “The main thing is people are now beginning to understand the dangers of drunken driving and the terrible consequences to the victims.”

Oxenreider, who on Thursday began her second term as chapter president, has been involved with MADD since 1989, shortly after her 19-year-old son, Joshua, and two other youths were killed by a drunken driver.

“When Joshua was killed, of course at first I was in shock. Then I started to get angry, very, very angry, and I wanted to channel it positively,” she said. “I made a promise to Joshua when we buried him that his death wouldn’t be in vain.”

Oxenreider has spent the past four years speaking in public about drunken driving, helping to establish the Ventura Police Department’s sobriety check program, participating on victims’ panels at drunk-driver schools and accompanying victims through the justice system.

These accomplishments earned her the honor, said attorney Mark Hiepler, chairman of the award program.

“She turned a personal tragedy into a crusade, not for her own personal benefit, but for the help and protection of others,” Hiepler said. “She initiated programs. She hasn’t just coasted along in an existing structure.”