The mother of a gay University of Wyoming student who was tortured and killed in 1998 was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom on Friday.
Judy Shepard’s son Matthew Shepard was 21 years old when Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson abducted him and drove him to a remote area east of Laramie, Wyoming. He was tied to a split-rail fence where the two men beat him with the butt of a pistol and left him to die.
Five days later he died in a Fort Collins hospital.
His parents, Dennis and Judy Shepard, later established the Matthew Shepard foundation, an LGBTQ advocacy group.
President Joe Biden on Friday awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Judy Shepard. It’s the highest civilian honor a citizen of the United States can get.
The award says Judy Shepard “took a mother’s most profound pain and turned her son’s memory into a movement.”
It hearkens to Shepard’s murder and says his parents have driven “progress in our laws and culture, giving young people and their families strength and hope for the future” with their advocacy, and that the family’s compassion reflects a better version of America.
The award bears Biden’s signature.
The Presidential Medal of Freedom is the nation’s highest civilian honor. Some of the other 18 people awarded with Shepard on Friday were Al Gore, former Secretary of State John Kerry, Sen. Nancy Pelosi and astronomer Dr. Jane Rigby.
Other notable, earlier Wyoming recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom include former Vice President Dick Cheney, presented by President George H.W. Bush in 1991, and former U.S. Sen. Al Simpson from Biden in 2022.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
