A little more than a year after her death and days after the U.S. Supreme Court opened the door for same-sex marriage in California, members of the Orange County Lavender Bar Assn. will honor the memory of Chapman University law professor Mary "Katherine" Baird Darmer with a scholarship for a local law student.
Darmer, who lived with her husband and two children in Newport Beach, was remembered as a fierce legal ally in support of same-sex marriage. She committed suicide in February 2012 at age 47, according to an Orange County coroner's office report.
At the association's third anniversary party next week, incoming UC Irvine School of Law student Jordan Aiken will be presented the first M. Katherine Baird Darmer Equality Scholarship.
"I'm excited about this honor," Aiken, now living in Pasadena, said Tuesday. "I never got to meet [Darmer], but I've heard a lot about her and that she was quite an amazing activist."