Judge Ann-Marie Carruth

"I was born in Lubbock and whenever my parents drove back to Lamesa with me in the car headed home from the hospital we went straight back to their law office. I had a little crib in the back, and that's where I would take naps. As I got older, my parents put in a TV so that after school I could go have a snack and watch TV. And for better or worse, it was just everything that I knew but it also gave me that passion. It gave me that desire and passion to give back to my community and help people. So I don't think I could have had any better role models because I really just got to experience it first-hand. It wasn't something that I thought about in theory or hypothetically, I saw it every day, and I knew it was something that I wanted to do."

"I actually wear my dad's robe."

"When I got sworn in four years ago I asked if I could wear his robe, so I had it tailored, it was a little bit too long so I had it shortened and taken up just a bit, and so I get to wear his robe. So it’s something that we share that I love."

"My parents ironically were not traditional agriculturists. I didn’t grow up on a farm or a ranch. They were in the legal profession, but I think in any small community like that in an agricultural area, agriculture just has a way of shaping the community and the people that are in it."

"I grew up in a small town in rural west Texas so agriculture had always been really important to me."

Extremely involved in FFA in high school.

"I was obviously influenced by what was around me and just caught this FFA bug and loved every minute of it. So I wasn’t ready to let it go after high school. I think that was honestly what spurred me on to pursuing agriculture as a degree and being able to use some of that scholarship money too."

Did not grow up in an agricultural family.

"There was something about growing up in a small agricultural community that defined who I was. The work ethic, the caring for other, being responsible for others in the community in the sense of stewardship, I just don’t think you can get anywhere else."

"So 18 year old Ann-Marie thought it would be a great idea to go to undergrad in the same place where she hoped to also go to law school, and with Tech being one of the only universities in the country that has both undergrad and law school on the same campus, it just seemed like the right fit. "

"So the thing that I like most about being a judge is I get to help everyone come to the best result, doesn't always mean that everyone wins, but I get to work through the problem and help come to a solution or to an answer that people have been waiting a long time to get. So I think that's the best part."

Her family is very supportive of her career which is important for her.

"The great thing is my boys understand what I do, and they think it's so cool what Mom does, and they're supportive of what I do. But the other part of that is my husband because I absolutely could not do it if I didn't have a built-in support system."

She tries to keep her family life and work life separate.

"My rule has become that I will do my job to the best of my ability all day every day but after 5 is sort of my time with my family because that's where my time is most importantly spent."

Ronald McDonald House, YWCA of Lubbock and the Community Foundation of West Texas

"I think law school can be difficult in a lot of ways regardless of how bright a student is, and so I think if you can find a passion for why you’re going or honestly for why you do anything in life, I think it just makes it easier and more enjoyable. "

"My motivation was always just to serve the community. I think it goes back to those small town agricultural roots where we all sort of pitch in and help each other and try to better our community and leave the community in a better place than we found it."

"It was just something that I wanted to do – I wanted to give back."

"When I decided that college was obviously the next step, I wanted to go somewhere where I could combine my love for agriculture with a university that I very much loved and respected so it just seemed like the perfect fit to come to Texas Tech."

ACOM is like a small community

She received a lot of support.

"If I told someone that I wanted to go to law school or this was my career path and these are my goals, I was just always encouraged by everyone and someone would find a way for me to do an internship that I wanted to do or locate a mentor for me to talk to. So it was just this built-in support system that I had absolutely no idea that I would get going off to college. "