Lucinda Boyd will be added to CAC's Wall of Success during ceremonies Saturday.

Maricopa resident Lucinda Boyd, RN, is scheduled to receive the 2019 Central Arizona College Outstanding Alumni Achievement Award on Saturday and will be added on the Wall of Success at CAC.

The Wall of Success is designed to recognize outstanding alumni for their personal and professional accomplishments. Many factors go into selecting Wall of Success members, including volunteerism in the community; professional, local, regional, national or international recognition; and accomplishment in their field of expertise.

“I am truly blessed to have my nursing career,” Boyd said. “It has enabled me to take care of myself, my family, to help others and to have a better life. It has opened doors and has allowed me to be a blessing to others.”

Lucinda Boyd (center) on the job as a critical care nurse. Submitted photo

Boyd is a wife, mother and grandmother and has volunteered in many capacities over the years.

Boyd grew up in Benson, a small town in southern Arizona. She is the oldest of eight children. She was always active in church, sports and clubs. Her senior year she was the Benson High School newspaper editor and business manager. She graduated BUHS in 1981. After High School she moved to Phoenix and in 1984 moved to Maricopa to raise her family.

Lucinda worked with youth In Maricopa for many years teaching religious education classes and serving as a religious education coordinator from 1986 to 1996 at the St. Francis De Sales Catholic Mission in Maricopa, now our Lady of Grace. She was instrumental in starting the annual festival and carnival to raise money for the new building fund working with Deacon Bill and Helen McGinney.

Lucinda Boyd

It was started as the St. Francis De Sales Feast Day on Jan. 24, although the date and name have since changed several times. She served in the music ministry, and was the rectora (director), co-director and team member of many Women’s Cursillo retreats (a short course in Christianity) and was a member of the Parish Pastoral Council. She retired as the religious education coordinator to continue at CAC to pursue a nursing degree.

Boyd started with the CNA class, graduated and began working while raising her children and going to CAC. She completed two years of prerequisites before starting the nursing program. While in the nursing program she became the vice president of the local Student Nurses Association and was then elected as the secretary of the Arizona Board of Directors for the Student Nurses Association. Lucinda was on the Dean’s list. Upon her graduation in 1998 she received the Outstanding Student Nurse of the Year Award and the Army Nurse Corps Spirit of Nursing Award.

Boyd was invited to work at Casa Grande Regional Medical Center, where she started on the Med/Surg floor, took classes in basic EKG, 12-lead EKG and ACLS and moved within a year to the Telemetry/Cardiac unit, where she became a charge nurse and worked for several years.

She then went to work as a critical-care nurse for Rural Metro/Southwest Ambulance. There, she took further classes in hemodynamics, ventilator and airway management, ACLS, PALS, Prehospital Trauma Life Support (PHTLS), Critical Care Emergency Medical Transport Program (CCEMTP), prehospital CCRN course, balloon pump and AIBP management.

After several years Boyd went to RN Case Management in Home Health and Hospice.

Although busy throughout those years she was the mom on the sidelines screaming for her kids and others at all their games. She raised two stepdaughters and four of her own children and took in many other teens from the community for periods of time to help them when needed.

In 2009 Lucinda and her husband Robert started an organization called “The Streets Don’t Love You Back” to educate the youth against gangs, drugs, violence and abuse and to empower them. They both have powerful stories of overcoming some of life’s traumatic circumstances. They want to help the youth and others heal and not go through some of the things they did.

Lucinda‘s journalism skills paid off as she edited two books for her husband. Lucinda then created and authored a Lifeskills Intervention Program, a curriculum to educate on skills and tools needed to overcome and be successful in life. The program is taught locally, in the Maricopa and Pinal County Detention Centers, ADOC and in over 155 prisons throughout the country. Lucinda has edited several books for various people including the mother of rapper Snoop Dogg, Beverly Broadus Green.

Boyd received a Humanitarian Award in 2015, graduated from the City of Maricopa Citizen Leadership Academy in 2016, served as a planning committee member at the Maricopa Teen Court in 2017, is a member of the Arizona Association of Conflict Resolution, a recipient of the Maricopa Chamber of Commerce 2017 Nonprofit of the Year Award, Maricopa Community Advocate Award in 2016 and HOPE Award in 2017.

The Streets Don’t Love You Back received a Certificate of Recognition and was introduced on the Arizona Senate floor by Sen. Catherine Miranda and Sen. Steve Smith two separate times and most recently they were recipients of the PCSO Challenge Coin and Volunteer Award from Pinal County Sheriff’s Office and Sheriff Mark Lamb for their volunteer service and lifeskills program at the detention center.

Boyd currently serves on the City of Maricopa Parks, Recreation and Libraries Advisory Board, she is a CAC Foundation director, president of the Zonta Club of Maricopa, and a Pinal County Juvenile Restorative Justice Advisory panel member.

“Like traditional nursing and the healing of our bodies, we must also heal our soul and minds and our hearts,” Boyd said. “Healing is our responsibility because we have the power to heal ourselves. We must let go of past pain and hurt, stop blaming others so that we can move forward in a positive manner. When we heal, we become the person we have always wanted to be or even better. We are not only able to metabolize the pain, but we are also able to affect real change in our lives, in our families and in our communities.”

The awards event Saturday celebrates CAC’s 50th anniversary.