June 2019 -- Judge Rebecca Sanders was appointed by the Kansas Secretary of Labor to fill a vacancy on the Kansas Workers Compensation Appeals Board. The process of being appointed by the Secretary first includes consideration by the Kansas Workers Compensation and Employment Security Board, which is made up of stakeholders nominated by Kansas agency heads and appointed by the Governor. The nominating board sent Judge Sanders name to the Secretary, who accepted the nomination and appointed Sanders to the position.

Judge Sanders is a long-time member of KWAA, having attended most of the annual conferences in Lindsborg, Kansas.

"I want to thank all my friends in KWAA and WAAT for their kind words and congratulations. It is because of organizations like this that empower me and all of us to achieve our professional goals. I feel like that organizations like this give us a wind to our backs and our wings to propel us up and forward," Judge Sanders stated. 

Judge Sanders has been a worker’s compensation administrative law judge for 11 years. She was chief of unemployment appeals before going to worker’s compensation. Judge Sanders will be the third woman to serve on the Worker’s Compensation Appeals Board and will be the only woman at present. She was the 2015 recipient of the Chief Justice Kay McFarland award. 

She is a 1975 graduate of Washburn University and a 1978 graduate of Washburn Law School. Judge Sanders stated that her professional and legal heroes "are Ruth Bader Ginsburg, after all she is the notorious RBG and a brilliant jurist, Justice Marla Luckert who is a great consensus builder without backing down on her own principles as well as very outstanding legal mind, Justice Carol Beier as a brilliant legal mind and writer. All three of these women possess great moral courage. I am so proud to be part of the same profession as them." 

It is well known that Judge Sanders is an avid KU basketball, Beatles, Jimmy Buffett and Jane Austen fan.