Submitted photo Earlier this month, Kentucky Supreme Court Chief Justice Debra Hembree Lambert, left, honored Judge Pamela R. Goodwine with a prestigious award during a recent Black History Month event in Frankfurt. Goodwine, a Youngstown native, is the first black woman to serve on the state’s highest court.

LEXINGTON, Ky. — Between when she walked the halls of South High School and the halls of the Kentucky Supreme Court, Judge Pamela R. Goodwine made a bit of history along the way.

Her 47-year path may have been strewn with several tragedies, but never lost was her determination, hard work and eyes on the prize.

“I was a curious teenager, and as part of a high school project, I went to the Mahoning County Courthouse downtown,” the 1978 South High graduate and Youngstown native, said.

Nearly five decades after her initial foray to the courthouse, Goodwine made history by becoming the first black woman to serve on Kentucky’s highest court.

Goodwine, who grew up on Glenwood Avenue on the South Side, has other firsts attached to her long legal resume. She also was the first black woman to serve on the bench in Fayette County, Kentucky, as chief regional circuit judge, a position she had from August 1999 to November 2003 after having been appointed by then-Gov. Paul E. Patton, and the first black female trial judge on the circuit court bench, which she held for 15 years.

Beforehand, however, Goodwine’s introduction to the legal system was rocky. She recalled having tried to interview someone for her South High School career-opportunities class at the Mahoning County Courthouse regarding her interest in law, but received “a cold reception” because “no one there looked like me — no women and no blacks. One person thought I was a defendant,” she remembered.

Nevertheless, far from giving up, the teenager spoke afterward with her adoptive parents, Willie and Ophelia Goodwine, both of whom placed a high premium on getting a good education, about the courthouse incident, and they encouraged her to press ahead. Further fueling Goodwine’s desire to reach the Supreme Court was having seen Thurgood Marshall, the first black justice appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court, she added.

A few months after graduating from South High, Goodwine received a four-year scholarship, but gave it up to care for her father, who was suffering from terminal lung cancer, from which he died in March 1979.

“I forfeited my scholarship to take care of him,” Goodwine said, adding that she simultaneously enrolled at the former ITT Technical School in Youngstown to study court stenography.

Soon after completing the course, she received an opportunity in Kentucky, where Goodwine was offered a position as a freelance court reporter, which took her to courthouses in all 120 of the state’s counties.

In January 1980, she enrolled at the University of Kentucky in Lexington to earn an undergraduate degree, the first step toward reaching her goal of entering law school. Nevertheless, another tragedy struck from afar when Goodwine’s adoptive mother was murdered three months later in Campbell.

Four years after that, Goodwine began serving on the Fayette County Circuit Court, but hardship again found its way to her when she developed Crohn’s disease, a chronic condition that typically causes inflammation in one’s digestive tract and usually affects the small intestine and part of the large intestine. Consequently, Goodwine had to drop out of school, quit working and undergo multiple surgeries.

“The doctors didn’t think I’d survive,” she said.

After a lengthy recovery, though, Goodwine re-enrolled at UK, where she graduated in May 1991 — a year that was pivotal in her life for another reason.

Having suffered from Crohn’s disease also fueled Goodwine’s desire to see whether it ran in her family, a move that prompted a search for her biological parents. After gaining a judge’s permission, Goodwine opened her adoption records and soon found her biological mother, Katie Snipes, who lived on Carroll Street off Glenwood Avenue. Also to Goodwine’s surprise, her half-sister went to school with Goodwine without either knowing she was related to the other.

Goodwine met her mother at a family reunion in Youngstown, which received media coverage, she said, adding that the family was very welcoming.

“It was difficult at first, but we forged ahead and had a wonderful, wonderful relationship,” Goodwine said about Snipes.

Also that year, she earned an undergraduate degree from UK’s Carol Martin Gatton College of Business and, three years later, graduated from the UK College of Law, to which she invited family members. In October 1994, Goodwine was admitted to the bar and entered private practice with Wyatt, Tarrant & Combs LLP, a regional civil law firm in Lexington for which she worked before being appointed five years later to the district court bench in August 1999.

In November 2018, Goodwine was elected to the Kentucky Court of Appeals 5th Appellate District, which covers an 11-county area of central Kentucky. That turned into a six-year position.

As recently as last year, Goodwine still sought to climb the legal ladder. By that time, she had befriended Laurence B. VanMeter, who served two years as chief justice on the Kentucky Supreme Court until his recent retirement. She expressed a strong interest to VanMeter to serve on the court, but said she wanted to wait until he retired instead of running against him. Since he opted not to seek reelection, Goodwine ran and won the position in the Nov. 5, 2024, general election. Her victory also created a female majority on the state’s highest court, Goodwine noted.

For her long list of achievements in the legal profession, Goodwine was inducted into the Carol Martin Gatton College of Business and Economics Hall of Fame in early 2000, named the Fayette Bar Association’s Outstanding Young Lawyer in May 2001, the 2012 Henry V. Pennington Trial Judge of the Year Award recipient and the 2018 “Women Making History” Award from the Kentucky Commission on Women. In 2020, the Kentucky Gazette recognized Goodwine as one of that year’s Notable Women in Kentucky Politics and Government.

During a Black History Month event earlier this month in Frankfurt, Kentucky, Goodwine was honored as the 2025 William E. McAnulty Jr. Award recipient for her leadership, commitment to her profession and dedication to her community. The award was named after the late McAnulty, who died in 2007 after having been the first black male on the Kentucky Supreme Court.

“I’m almost speechless. … Judge McAnulty and I worked together in 1986,” Goodwine said during the Black History Month award gathering. “I was his court reporter when he was assigned to a case in Fayette County. I was honored to work with him then, and I shared my dream with him of one day serving on the Kentucky Supreme Court. This is a 45-year dream (since the start of her legal career) in the making, and I am honored not only to have accomplished that goal, but one of many firsts.”

Perhaps more important for Goodwine than the plethora of awards and recognitions is precisely her role as a trailblazer, something she takes very seriously. Specifically, the longtime legal professional wants to pave a path for greater diversity on the bench and beyond for others to follow.

“It was opening doors for other African-American women on other career paths,” Goodwine said, adding she hopes the same for other people who have been inspired by her story of tragedy and triumph.