It has been a “long road” according to those Rockwall district attorneys, who together have trod it for two years, but as of 8:30 Monday morning, a “wonderful new journey began”.

Kenda Culpepper, who has been waiting since the March primaries to assume the duties of Rockwall County district attorney was sworn in Monday morning.

She takes over an office bereft of an official district attorney since the 20-year tenure of Ray Sumrow ended for good with his 15-year prison sentence in June on felony charges.

Acting district attorney Craig Stoddart received a standing ovation from the full third floor courtroom in the justice center for his leadership over the two-year period, during which, as David Rakow, Rockwall County Court at Law judge said, cases still kept moving at a better rate than area counties.

Stoddart worked under district attorney Sumrow 15 years, and was sworn in as the first assistant district attorney under Culpepper by Justice David Bridges, 5th Court of Appeals.

“We are at the end of a long road for the district attorney’s office and I’m proud of the job that we did,” Stoddart said. “We made it down that road. We’re a close family. We are accepting a new member into our family. We look forward to working with you and I wish you great things.”

With her father’s Bible, and her sister’s necklace, as Culpepper said, “I feel like am surrounded by family.”

She was, in the front row with her husband of five and a half years, Jim Pruitt, with whom she has shared a criminal law practice partnership, their daughter Kaylen, and her mother Betty.

Congressman Ralph Hall, law enforcement personnel, county staff, friends and peers filled the audience.

“I will work to be a faithful steward of your trust,” she told everyone after a hug from Justice Carolyn Wright, 5th District Court of Appeals, who swore in Culpepper. “Folks, I am so excited and ready to start on this wonderful journey.”

“We’re ready to go; Kenda’s a great trial lawyer,” said Assistant District Attorney Mike Carnes after the brief ceremony in which everyone was sworn in. “She can try cases with the best of them.”

“Kenda’s a very good trial lawyer,” said Assistant District Attorney Stephanie Hudgins Woodward, who was sworn in with her peers Monday. She and Culpepper tried cases together during their tenure in the Dallas district attorney’s office. “She’s very intelligent and she just has this gift of being a good trial lawyer — you either have it or you don’t.”

For Woodward, Stoddart stated the office’s feeling best, “It’s a family. We all work together to help each other out. It’s very supportive. But for the family feeling, I don’t know that we could have survived all this,” she said. “I see very positive things for this office.”

So does Culpepper, who spoke later that day from the “war room” or library of the district attorney’s offices.

“I am so excited, I really am, about this really wonderful journey I’m about to embark on. There is a lot of talent in terms of trial skills,” she said of the attorneys in the office. “There is a sense of community that I like and good relationships with the other attorneys in town. The people are intelligent and they care passionately about their jobs.”

She will still try cases from time to time but the district attorney’s “first and foremost job” is to be an administrator.

By Monday afternoon, she had already begun collaborations with law enforcement agencies, county sheriff, county human resources director, county juvenile probation, county auditor and the county treasurer.

As of Tuesday, she was to present her first request to the Rockwall county commissioners for funds to have a full outside audit performed of the office.

“It is important to the community,” she said. “We are ready to start with a clean slate and be faithful stewards of this office. It is so important for the community to understand that what happened shouldn’t reflect negatively on this office.”

She added that she will work hard to make sure “we never lose that trust.”

Culpepper grew up in San Antonio, and as a daughter of a college basketball coach, was surrounded by sports.

She received a scholarship to Texas A&M; in electrical engineering. She was on her way to becoming an astronaut, she thought, but her mother helped her realize something.

“My mother came to me when I was a senior in high school, and said, ‘Tell me your favorite subjects,’” said Culpepper.

She told her English, Latin, history, philosophy, political science and physics.

Realizing that, she took her mother’s encouragement to work for a solo trial law practitioner in San Antonio, who ended up taking her to a trial where now U.S. Senator John Cornyn of Texas was the judge.

“I got chill bumps as I walked in there and watched the trial,” she said. “I said, ‘This is where I want to be. I always knew I wanted to be a trial lawyer after that.”

She initially thought her law practice would be in international environmental enforcement, and so split an internship one summer working for the Environmental Protection Agency and Oxford in international law.

But it “didn’t have the magic” she said. She got her third year bar card while at SMU, and went into the criminal law clinic.

“I was in the courtroom every day and trying cases in front of judges,” said Culpepper.

That is where the magic is for her, and she has enjoyed that magic throughout the state in her criminal law practice, visiting many district attorney’s offices. She believes that experience will help her and the Rockwall County DA’s office. As she told the attorneys and audience in the morning ceremony, and in the interview, they will “try some things”.

According to Culpepper, openness and transparency will be hallmarks of the office.

“Folks, I am so ready to start on this wonderful journey,” she said.