Yvonne G. Pesce
Yvonne G. Pesce is a 1978 graduate of Ware High School who finds herself working back where she started.
As part of her job as an Assistant District Attorney for the Northwestern District, Yvonne conducts regular safety meetings with school officials – at the high school.
“I really love being able to work with my alma mater, and even though my family no longer lives in Ware, we have strong ties to the community.”
That background was part of the reason she was hired by then-incoming District Attorney Dave Sullivan in 2011 after she worked nearly a decade as an Assistant District Attorney in Hampden County, mainly in Springfield.
“The DA was delighted that I was a Ware High graduate and it definitely helped me get this job,” she said.
As chief of the Juvenile Unit Yvonne oversees four juvenile courts in two counties. She carries a caseload, conducts trials and her unit also puts on numerous conferences and trainings throughout the year.
The emphasis on school-based meetings and training was a perfect fit, in part because of how she grew up. Yvonne’s father, Augustus, is a former Superintendent in Ware. Various school officials, teachers and school committee members were often at their house discussing issues. “It was normal kitchen table talk for us,” she said of her family that includes siblings, Edward, Denise and Joseph, all Ware High graduates. Her mother, Grace, passed away in 2005.
Being a prosecutor is second career for Yvonne, who spent more than two decades in the newspaper business as a reporter and editor. That came after graduating with a journalism degree from Northeastern University in Boston.
“My English classes with the Higneys prepared me so well, my classes at Northeastern were perfectly manageable."
In 2000, she graduated from Western New England College School of Law and got a job with the DA’s office in Springfield. The next ten years were busy. She continued to work part-time for the Springfield newspapers at night for several years while working as a prosecutor, got married to Martin Flynn, became a stepmom of three and now step-grandmother of five.And she followed her Dad again – this time to American International College in Springfield where she taught a night class in Juvenile Law for five years.
She’s now hoping to get back to another court – the tennis court. Former Ware teacher David Todd taught Yvonne and many others to play the game and it’s been a constant through her life. She’s still an avid reader and loves traveling to Europe and also figure skating.