It's strange how you can be acquainted with somebody for years – or decades in this case – and not really know much about them as people.

As editor of the Courier for approaching 38 years, I’ve known community pillars Brenda Scudder Herbert and husband Harry Herbert and seen them at countless events. They’ve always been active in the community with Brenda having worked in the local offices of a number of elected officials, recently put out of work with the defeat of her boss, Congressman John Duarte by Adam Gray. Harry has been a member of the Ceres Lions Club for decades and also served as the elected city treasurer.

But after visiting with them for an hour and a half last week, I know so much more than I had ever gleaned in nearly four decades. For example, I didn’t know that Harry was born and raised in North Carolina and spent decades living in various places during his 20-year military career and his career as a computer programmer.

Brenda, who was born Jan. 1, 1965 in Ceres to Jim and Colleen Scudder, attended Caswell Elementary, Mae Hensley Junior High School and Ceres High School where she graduated in 1983.

Growing up in a small community of mere thousands allowed Brenda to establish lifelong relationships. She’s still in contact with neighbor kids who grew up with her, including Lisa Sloane now in Tennessee. Brenda Suarez was a friend from kindergarten and they still get together for lunch and hang out.

“I’m related to like everybody in Ceres – like the Livingstons,” she said. “My uncle was part of the City Council back in his day, Harry Livingston, who was a farmer out on Central Avenue. I’m related to the Stewarts. I was related to Jack Thornton (son-in-law of Chew ’n Chat owners Bob and Ruth Simpson.)”

It seems that everyone’s high school experience is punctuated by some tragedy involving a classmate and Brenda’s was no different. During August of her senior year, 17-year-old classmate Clem Trinkler died in a car crash on his way to the County Fair. The crash took place on Crow Landing Road not far from his parents’ dairy.

“I received a graduation card from his mother and it was just like wow.”

Back then Ceres had a volunteer fire department and Brenda remembers hearing the siren go off downtown to summon volunteers to go fight a fire.

While in high school she was involved with FFA and swine production but agriculture wasn’t appealing as a career. As a senior Brenda enrolled in beauty salon ROP classes at Adrian’s Beauty College in Modesto.

“That wasn’t exciting enough so I went to become an EMT (Emergency Medical Technician) until she was 24, working in San Jose.” She quit that job the night before the Loma Prieta Earthquake struck on April 14, 1989. “Otherwise,” she explained, “I would have been there.”

After studying to become a medical assistant, Brenda was hired as an admissions representative at Andon College. After Gary Condit was elected to Congress and vacated his state Assembly seat, Brenda was asked to work on the campaign of County Supervisor Sal Cannella as a paid staffer.

“My family has always been involved in the community. My dad was 70 when he served with Kathy Casey on Parks and Recreation for the city. My mom was on Concerts in the Park (committee) forever and a day and so my dad graduated with Sal. I was just asked to work on his campaign.”

Cannella was elected in the special election and again in the general election of 1990. Scudder then worked on the campaign of Karen Mathews for county clerk-recorder, which ended up landing her a role in that office – and a future husband.

“I was in charge of managing polling places,” Brenda said.

When nobody came forward to run for Ceres city clerk Brenda reluctantly threw her hat in the ring and was elected without any semblance of a campaign – the benefit of being known in a small city.

She next helped Gary Condit get re-elected to Congress and then worked in the district office of then state Assemblyman Dennis Cardoza.

During Condit’s 2001 scandal related to missing intern Chandra Levy – whose body turned up in a Washington, D.C. park in 2002 – Brenda was the one who helped shield the Condit Acorn Lane residence from the prying cameras of the national media by arranging the parking of RVs in front.

When the voters turned Condit out of office in 2002 in favor of Cardoza, Scudder worked in his local office. That job came to end when Cardoza was defeated by Republican Jeff Denham. Brenda was “never asked” to work for Congressman Denham and was out of work for a time – until she was tapped to work in the Ceres office of state Senator Anthony Cannella.

It was while in the county clerk/elections office that Brenda met Harry, who was with ATPAC, a firm that wrote the software for the county elections ballot counting. Harry was previously married and had two children, one of which was a daughter who died of birth defects a month after her birth. His son who came along in 1978 is now a paralegal outside of Waco, Texas.

Harry's North Carolina upbringing

Harry was born in 1950 in Wilson, N.C., a town in a tobacco growing region. His parents met in Norfolk, Va., as his father was an airplane mechanic for the Navy and mother was working at an air propeller plant.

His mother, Mariela Clark earned her pilot’s license at age 16 and community bragging rights.

“She was the first woman to solo between Wilson and Raleigh and they named a street after her in Wilson for that,” said Harry. “Growing up she was the sportsman. I learned to fish and hunt from her.”

The Herbert family later moved to Grifton, N.C.

“Grifton was Ceres way back when – very similar,” he said. “The main street is about a block long.”

While a student at Grifton High School, Harry took a correspondence course to learn computer programming. Upon graduating in 1968 he went to Kansas City, Mo., to complete the course for the Kansas City Business Machine. He returned home to work at Lenore Community College in Kinston, N.C. From there was off to Falls College in Atlanta, Ga. which closed, sending him back to North Carolina.

It was the height of the Vietnam War and Harry had been talking to an Air Force recruiter when he learned he had been drafted. His recruiter signed him out of the draft and into the Air Force in March 1971. Even though he was skilled in computers, the first four years of his 20-year military career was spent driving a fuel truck at Rhien-Main Air Force Base in Frankfort, Germany. He narrowly missed being sent to Vietnam.

Harry made a number of attempts to cross train for computer jobs with the Air Force but was refused. When his mother casually mentioned to her congressman that her son’s requests weren’t being considered, Harry was finally put to use in computer programming. He bounced between Offutt AFB in Omaha to Biloxi, Miss., and Norfolk, Va. to work for the Navy’s Intelligence Center. One of Harry’s jobs scheduling SR 71 flights and submarine visits before being ordered to Norton AFB in San Bernardino where he spent the rest of his career which ended in 1991.

Harry went to work for DIMS (Data Information Management System) which developed ballot counting software. A spinoff company, InfoTox developed software and training for personnel related to asbestos removal.

Harry also helped design the DIMS software for county recorders’ office. After the design, a new company was formed called ATPAC. Stanislaus County was the first county to use its software.

That’s where Harry and Brenda met – in the Modesto office in 1992. In the meantime, Harry and his first wife had become divorced.

Harry proposed marriage to Brenda – 15 and a half years his junior – with a special message that popped up on the scoreboard of the Sept. 10, 1993 San Francisco Giants game.

The couple married at Ceres Christian Church, which has since been leveled to make way for the Ceres Community Center.

Harry said he turned down a job offer in Austin, Texas because Brenda was not going to leave Ceres.

The ATPAC gig continued until 2005. From there he worked at Lockheed Martin, a contractor to GSA at Sharp Army Depot in Lathrop. When budget cuts eliminated his position, he moved onto Intel in San Jose for several months and then worked for the Department of Defense Center in Monterey where he retired in 2023 after a decade of service.

“Out of all the moving around and transferring and going, I never really missed a place that I left – I’ve missed the people. So living here and getting to know all the people, Ceres is the closest thing to my hometown in the fifties that I can remember. So I think it’s a really great place to live.” 

Approaching his 75th birthday, Harry is now focusing on enjoying retirement.

Thoughts on elections

Since he was involved with software for elections, I asked Harry’s thoughts on election integrity.

“I have faith in the elections process and the ballot counting, yes. I do not have faith in the voters.”

He said since the ballot counting process is not on the internet, it cannot be hacked.

Brenda said she was stunned at how long it took to count the ballots in the last election.

“When I worked in the Elections Department I was in on the ballot counting and we would stay there and count the ballots. We would put the ballots on a hopper. We would have them done by like 5 in the morning.”

Brenda was disturbed when Duarte lost the election, not because she was out of work but because she felt he was a great boss and congressman.

“I have never worked with a legislator that worked so hard for the people than John Duarte did. If he was home he’d say load up my calendar.”

She referenced one of Adam Gray’s campaign “hit” pieces attacked Duarte and questioning vacations during the August recess.

“It’s like, okay, Adam, just wait. Just wait until August when you’re on recess, what are you going to do? We literally had town hall meetings probably three nights a week for August but the voters never knew about that.”

Brenda helped work on constituents’ behalf to serve in a geographically spread 13th Congressional District. It extends as far south as Coalinga southwest of Fresno all the way up to Lathrop.

Herbert assisted Duarte’s constituents needing help on a variety of levels. There were veterans trying to get services from the Veterans Affairs agency; taxpayers having problems with the IRS; retirees dealing with Social Security problems; and those ready to travel aboard but having difficulties securing a passport to leave the country.

When asked if her job with public officials allowed her to meet any VIPs, Harry urged her to go get her purse. I was puzzled until she returned with a purse resembling a cigar box – signed by Bill Clinton.

“I had the purse and I carried it all time and I was at a fundraiser he was at and he said, ‘I like your purse.’”

So right there in Del Rio Country Club north of Modesto, the former president signed her purse when asked. The connection to Monica Lewinsky was subtle.

The Herberts also met baseball great Hank Aaron in Sacramento before his passing.

Community involved

Brenda keeps active in Soroptimist, a club for which she’s been a member for 23 years and served as its president for the 2019-20 year.

“I like the community involvement – that’s how I was raised.”

She especially enjoyed chairing the ice cream socials at the Daniel Whitmore House to raise money for the Ceres Historical Society.

Brenda also participated in putting on workshops to empower women at the Redwood Family Center and the Stanislaus Recovery Center in Ceres.

“I would go and teach a floral designing class for those places,” said Herbert, who for a time owned Ceres Floral Shop in the Richland Shopping Center.

“We actually bought it to give my mother something to do,” said Brenda. 

Colleen Scudder, who was widowed with the passing of Jim in 1992, passed away in 2018.

The deaths of brother Michael Scudder in 2021 from COVID, and a half brother of kidney failure at age 27 in 1987, left her as the last surviving family.

Harry has enjoyed being a longtime member of the Ceres Lions Club – he joined in 1999 – and relished in organizing the annual member and family campout, recently held at Lake McSwain. He also enjoys helping the club manage the parking lot of the Stanislaus County Fair each summer. Money raised by the Lions goes back into nonprofit organizations. Harry has once served as Lions Club president.

For a number of years Harry served as city treasurer but he said he didn’t like the job.

“The way they’ve gotten organized I had to request to see the financial reports and I was excluded from all of the meetings and I’d have to force myself in there to do stuff.”

A more rewarding experience, he feels, is sitting on the Ceres Community Foundation board.

As the couple seemingly winds down, their weekends are often filled with attending community events and, since they have no children of their own, like to watch the kids of family members play baseball at Costa Fields. They also catch performances of her nephew, Greg Scudder, a popular local country singer, at local venues.

The Herberts also enjoy taking cruises, sometimes to Cabo San Lucas.