Ruth Ellen Hardy[1][2] was born in the Tompkins County area of New York circa 1970,[3] a daughter of Robert B. Hardy Jr. and Miriam (Smith) Hardy.[4] Robert Hardy (1930-2005) was a graduate of Cornell University and Cornell Law School, and he served for more than thirty years as an Administrative Law Judge for the New York State Department of Labor.[4] Ruth Hardy was raised and educated in Tompkins County and is a 1988 graduate of Dryden High SchoolinDryden, New York.[5][6][7]
After relocating to Vermont, Hardy served as executive director of the Open Door Clinic in Middlebury, Vermont.[6] In addition, she worked as assistant budget director at Middlebury College, and director of government grants at Planned Parenthood of Northern New England.[6] She also served as executive director of Emerge Vermont, which recruits and trains women to run for public office.[6]
Hardy served three terms on Middlebury-area school boards and was chairwoman of Middlebury's Mary Hogan School Board, co-chairwoman of the Addison Central Supervisory Union Unification Charter Committee, and Chair of the Addison Central School District Finance Committee.[6] She is a graduate of the Snelling Center's Vermont Leadership Institute.[6]
In early 2018, incumbent Democrat Claire D. Ayer announced that she would not be a candidate for reelection to the Vermont Senate in the two-member at-large Addison County Senate District.[6] Hardy announced her candidacy in May.[6] In the November general election, Hardy and incumbent Democrat Christopher Bray were the top two finishers.[10]
At the start of her Senate term, Hardy was appointed to the Committees on Education and Agriculture, and was named clerk of the Agriculture Committee.[6] In addition, she was named to the Senate's special panel on sexual harassment and the Joint Committee on Judicial Retention.[6] She has been re-elected twice in 2020 and 2022, serving on the Health and Welfare Committee, Finance Committee, and as the chair of the Government Operations Committee.
