Valinda E. Livingston was the middle child of three children born to Elmer and Emma Saunders Lewis in Lexington, KY. She graduated from Dunbar High School and then received the Bachelor of Arts from Kentucky State University. She was granted the Master’s Degree plus fifteen hours of post-graduate work from the University of Kentucky. She continued post-graduate studies at Eastern Kentucky University and was certified as a Supervisor of Instruction, Elementary School Principal and Gifted Education Instruction.
During Mrs. Livingston’s 37 year career in the Fayette County Public Schools, she served as an elementary teacher, elementary school principal and district wide administrator of at-risk programs.

Continuing her commitment to education, Mrs. Livingston established the Valinda E. Livingston Endowed Student Scholarship for Kentucky State University Education Majors in 1997.

Governor Brereton Jones appointed Mrs. Livingston to the Kentucky State University Board of Regents. She served as Chair of the Board of Regents and completed a term of seven years. She received a Letter of Commendation from Governor Paul Patton for Distinguished Service to the KSU Board of Regents. Governor Martha Layne Collins (1987) and Governor Steven Beshear (2009) honored Mrs. Livingston by naming her a Kentucky Colonel. She is also listed among the Notable African Americans in Kentucky.
For several years, Mrs. Livingston served on the Board of Examiners for the Educational Professional Standards Board of the Kentucky Education Department where she helped evaluate colleges and universities in Kentucky.

Mrs. Livingston was honored in 1995 when she received the
• Presidential Citation from the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education for being a Distinguished Alumna of a Historically Black University.
• In 2011 she received the William H. Goodwin Commitment Award from the Kentucky State University National Alumni Association and in
• 2013 she was given the Tradition of Rufus B. Atwood Alumni Service Award by the Kentucky State University President Mary E. Sias.

Through the years, Mrs. Livingston has served in many leadership positions in the Shiloh Baptist Church, the Consolidated District and the General Association of Baptists in Kentucky. While serving as Women’s Auxiliary President, she founded the Consolidated District Women’s Retreat that is nearing 30 years of existence. Mrs. Livingston is a former president of the Baptist State Women’s Educational Convention and is in her fifteenth year as a Sunday School Lesson writer for the American Baptist Newspaper.

During her nine year tenure with the Lexington Singers, Mrs. Livingston enjoyed singing at many wonderful venues including the Vatican in Rome, Italy and at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C.
Mrs. Livingston was married to the late Joe L. Livingston and is the mother of one son, Shawn D. Livingston. She is a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority and Phi Delta Kappa.