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Meet the Advisory Board: Celeste Miller

How long have you served on the Advisory Board?

Celeste Miller and her husband sit on a branch on a beach
Celeste Miller

6 months.

Are you part of any committees? If so, what is your role?

I an the new Chair of the Track 4 Committee.

What is your most memorable Osher Institute experience?

Co-teaching a four-unit course in April 2019, “The Anatomy of a Federal White Collar Criminal Investigation and Prosecution,” with my friend and former colleague, Wendy Olson.

Favorite Osher presentation you have attended thus far?

The lecture on Burning Man.

Are you a Boise native? If not, where are you originally from?

I moved to Boise in 1980 after attending school in Moscow for 3 years.

What is your career history?

I was a litigation lawyer in private practice for about five years on either end of a 25-year stint as a Federal Prosecutor (in the Idaho U.S. Attorney’s Office exclusively for 16 years, then in offices throughout the Northwest, including Idaho, for 9 years).

What hobbies do you enjoy?

Outdoors: Cycling, walking, swimming and lounging; Indoors: Playing with grandkids; Reading and writing; visiting with family and friends and lounging.

What are you doing to occupy your time during the stay-at-home order?

I read literary fiction, and I write almost every day (for up to several hours on very productive days); go outside almost every day for at least an hour of walking or cycling); talk on the phone to family and friends more than usual; Zoom gatherings have come to replace hosting regular Sunday dinners for our daughters and their families; we visit by exchanging texts, messaging and email more frequently than in what I now call, “The Land Before Time” (referring to time before February 13, 2020). Our family is geocaching – hiding trinkets in an ammo box in the foothills, then providing the coordinates of the location to each other so the grandkids have an outside activity we are doing together while apart. My laptop told me that my screen time increased by 26% last week.

I access engaging material for large chunks of each day that are too numerous and varied to catalog! Some highlights include following Historian Heather Cox Richardson (who now gives two live online classes in American history each week); I marvel at the ever-increasing outpouring of artistic experiences that are available online, including music, essays, humor, videos, amateur and professional. Books of interest: Where You’re All Going by Joan Frank, The Honey Bus by Meredith May, and The Splendid and the Vile by Eric Larson.