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Adelfa Callejo was honored with the 2010 La Luz Achievement Award by the Dallas Hispanic Bar Association at the “Lighting the Path to Legal Education” scholarship and awards banquet at the Belo Mansion on September 30, 2010.

Callejo moved with her family from Millet to Dallas after high school and attended night school at SMU while continuing to support her family. She moved to California in 1945 to help her brother who had been blinded during World War II. While there, she became a successful entrepreneur and met her husband William “Bill” F. Callejo. The couple returned to Dallas in 1951, where she resumed studies at SMU, earning her J.D. and undergraduate degrees concurrently. She was the first Hispanic woman to earn a J.D. from SMU Dedman School of Law. Callejo has been a champion for the underprivileged ever since.

A founding member of the DHBA, Callejo has mentored young, mostly Latina attorneys over the past 20 years and has helped diversify the organization by including members from all socio-economic spheres and legal practice areas. Over the years, Callejo has become known for her sincerity, ambition, and outspoken and opinionated personality, inspiring young attorneys to pursue their goals—even in the face of obstacles—on the road to achievement.