Valeriano and Teresa Saucedo receive title of honored couple for this years Orange Blossom Festival in Lindsay
LINDSAY – From teaching students how to pass the bar exam to mentoring youth through educational boards, a local couple is honored at this year’s festival for their dedication to the community.
Valeriano and Teresa Saucedo, two locals well-versed in the law and in community outreach, have been chosen as the 2023 Lindsay Orange Blossom Festival’s honored couple. They follow in the footsteps of their daughter Valicia Saucedo Trowbridge who was chosen as an OBF attendant in 2001 and as OBF Queen in 2005. They will be recognized on April 1 at the 91st annual Orange Blossom Festival.
Valeriano and Teresa have been active in the Lindsay community since their move to the area in 1985. They originally lived in Berkeley and Salinas after they were married 42 years ago, but decided “there is no place like Lindsay,” and quickly moved back to Valeriano’s hometown. From 1998 to 2001, they taught citizenship classes sponsored by Sacred Heart Catholic Church, the city of Lindsay and Proyecto Campesino. Since 2016, they have been teaching weekly citizenship classes as volunteers with El Quinto Sol of Lindsay and Self-Help Enterprises. They are also both active in the Sacred Heart Catholic Church, serving as lectors and having taught confirmation classes. Teresa serves on the church’s finance council and has conducted daily communion services. She is also a member of the Sacred Heart Altar Society.
For several years, Valeriano was an instructor at the College of the Sequoias where he helped prepare students to take and pass the oral portion of the California Interpreter’s Licensing Exam. In his own time, he successfully helped many law school graduates prepare for the California Bar Examination. Both Valeriano and Teresa served as mentors to students in the College of the Sequoias mentoring program. Valeriano was also on the Board of Pro-Youth Visalia, an after school education and mentoring program for children.
In the past, Valeriano was chair of Healthy Kids/Healthy Lindsay and a founder of Leadership Lindsay. While their children were in Lindsay schools, both Valeriano and Teresa served on school site councils. Valeriano and Teresa, as well as their children, were part of the Lindsay Ono Sister City program and were chosen to represent Lindsay in Ono City. They, in turn, hosted visitors from Ono City, Japan and helped with the fundraising teriyaki dinners. Not only that, but Valeriano has done his fair share of acting in Lindsay Community Theater productions and, in 2021, directed the play “Our Lady of the Tortilla.” He also enjoys golf, playing regularly at the River Island Country Club.
Both Valeriano and Teresa acted as attorney coaches for the Lindsay High School mock trial team. Teresa is a member of Lindsay Kiwanis, having served as secretary and a past president. She is also on the board of the Lindsay Kiwanis Foundation. As a Kiwanian, she has helped with elections, participated in the Easter Egg Hunt, Christmas give-away, Pancake Breakfast, the Ag Expo, food drive, blood donations, Rib Cook-Off, Lindsay Family Camp Out, recognition of Terrific Kids, City Park and Tulare Road clean-up and tree planting. Teresa is also a member of P.E.O, the Lindsay District Hospital Guild, and is on the Tulare County Library Advisory Board.
Valeriano practiced law with the National Economic Development and Law Center in Berkeley, California Rural Legal Assistance in Gilroy, the CRLA Migrant Farmworker Project in Fresno, and with Miner, Barnhill and Galland in Chicago and Visalia. He was elected to the City Council in 1990 and served as Mayor for the City of Lindsay from 1992 to 2001, when he was appointed as Superior Court Judge, serving until 2016. Teresa practiced law with the University of New Mexico School of Law Employment Law Project, Southern New Mexico Legal Services, Oregon Legal Services, California Rural Legal Assistance in Salinas, and Tulare County Counsel in Visalia where she was Chief of the Litigation Team at the time of her retirement in 2013.
Valeriano and Teresa met in New Mexico after they were both lawyers and have been married for 42 years. They moved to Lindsay in 1985 after the birth of their daughter Valicia and son Valeriano III. Valicia graduated from Lindsay High School in 2001 and Valeriano graduated in 2002. An older son, Daniel, died in 2000. Valicia, who lives in Colorado, is married to David Trowbridge and they have two sons, Nicolas and Felipe. Valeriano and his fiancee Julia Hill live in Oakland and plan to marry in October. Val and Teresa have two other grandchildren, Daniel Ortiz and Desiree Sanchez. Desiree will receive her degree from the University of New Mexico in May.
Valeriano was born in Tornillo, Texas, moved with his family to Lindsay in 1965. He graduated from Lindsay High School in 1969 and received his bachelor’s degree from UC Berkeley in 1973. He also received his J.D. from Stanford Law School in 1976. Teresa was born in Hatch, New Mexico, and graduated from Las Cruces High School in 1964, received her bachelor’s degree from New Mexico State University in 1968 and a J.D. from the University of New Mexico School of Law in 1974. She practiced law in Oregon, New Mexico and California. Teresa was the oldest of 15, having ten brothers and four sisters.
