LAKE OZARK — For nearly a quarter-century, Osage County Prosecuting Attorney Amanda Grellner has approached the job with a fairly simple philosophy.

The people who walk into her office, the victims and families she represents, and the community in which she grew up are not abstractions or case numbers.

They are her people.

That philosophy has carried Grellner through thousands of decisions, difficult prosecutions, long nights, private practice, service to prosecutors across Missouri, and even periods when circumstances in her own family would have given most people every reason to put work aside.

Her peers took notice.

Grellner was named Prosecutor of the Year during the Missouri Association of Prosecuting Attorneys’ fall conference on Thursday at the Lake of the Ozarks, an honor recognizing far more than the outcome of any single case.

“You don’t do this job for recognition,” Grellner said. “You do this job because you’re trying to do the right thing. I do this job because I grew up here, and having a safe community and serving the people of Osage County is of paramount importance to me. For others to recognize that is very humbling and appreciated in ways that I don’t know that I could describe.”

Grellner graduated from law school in December 1999 after completing the program in two and a half years and passed the bar shortly thereafter. She went to work in Linn in May 2000 and was appointed Osage County prosecuting attorney in February 2002.

Nearly 25 years later, she remains there.

The award, she said, reflects an overall body of work rather than simply cases prosecuted during the past year.

“It’s not just cases,” Grellner said. “It’s built on your reputation, on the roles that you take within the association, the kinds of cases that you take over the years. I think it’s an overall thing.”

That body of work extends well beyond the Osage County Courthouse.

Grellner has served for years on the Prosecuting Attorneys and Circuit Attorneys Retirement System board and also serves on the Missouri Association of Prosecuting Attorneys board, treatment court committee, and sentencing advisory committee. She chairs the association’s part-time prosecutor committee and has regularly assisted and mentored other prosecutors.

She has also accepted special prosecutions elsewhere in Missouri when asked.

Those responsibilities come in addition to maintaining a private law practice and handling the duties of prosecutor in Osage County.

It is a workload Grellner acknowledges is not conventional.

“Most people don’t want to work 80 hours a week like I do and I understand that,” she said.

Even during one of the most difficult periods her family has faced, Grellner continued working.

Her husband, Cody Fulkerson, was diagnosed with Chronic Neutrophilic Leukemia, an extraordinarily rare and aggressive blood cancer. After doctors found a stem-cell donor, Fulkerson underwent intensive chemotherapy and a transplant at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas.

Grellner was with him and was still working.

That commitment was among the examples cited during the presentation recognizing her career — not because answering calls from Houston made her a better prosecutor, but because it illustrated the constancy others have seen throughout her professional life.

Fulkerson eventually returned home in remission after a transplant he called a miracle.

Grellner credits her ability to sustain her pace not to herself alone, but to the people around her.

“I could not do all that I do were it not for the unwavering support, first of all, of my family and God,” she said. “Cody in particular, takes care of ‘all the things’ so I can work and maintain the pace the job(s) require. I truly couldn’t do it without all he does to help and support me.”

She also singled out Susie Fowler and Ellen Nichols in her courthouse office. “They absolutely keep that office together and me on track,” Grellner said. “They are my heroes in so many ways.”

The other partnership essential to prosecution, she said, is law enforcement. “I appreciate having a good working relationship with law enforcement,” Grellner said. “I work hard to maintain a good relationship with law enforcement because we’re a team. Neither one of us can do things without the other.”

Grellner may ultimately be the person standing in the courtroom, but said that appearance is the culmination of work performed by many people before a case ever reaches that point. “I’m a one-man band in the sense that when I go into the courtroom, it’s me,” she said. “But there are a lot of things that put all those instruments on before I get there.”

Few cases illustrated that collaboration, and Grellner’s philosophy toward victims, more clearly than the prosecution of Warren Taylor in the murders of Chamois residents Leonard and Pauline Gerloff.

Taylor ultimately pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree murder in 2024 after nearly three years of court proceedings.

For Grellner, however, one of the most important parts of reaching that resolution happened outside the formal proceeding.

She met extensively with the Gerloff family before agreeing to the plea. “I had such participation and cooperation and involvement of the victim’s family,” Grellner said. “They were supportive. I kept them involved, and no plea agreement was reached until I had a long conversation with all of them. We filled the courtroom. We answered all the questions.”

When the possibility arose of bringing outside prosecutors in to handle the case, Grellner’s response reflected the connection she feels to Osage County.

“They’re not doing it,” she recalled telling the judge. “They can assist me, but they’re my people. Those are my people, and it’s my job to protect my people.”

For the Gerloff family, the eventual plea meant Taylor would go to prison, and they could begin trying to move forward without enduring a prolonged trial and additional litigation.

For Grellner, it remains an example not simply of obtaining a conviction but of including the people most affected in determining what justice should look like.

That distinction matters because prosecution, she said, is rarely as simple as demanding the harshest possible punishment.

Every case brings different evidence, different circumstances, different victims, and competing considerations.

“I try to stay consistent,” Grellner said. “But every case is different, and some of them, they don’t have the evidence you’d like them to have. You are trying to balance all of the things at once, and you have competing interests, and you make those decisions.”

Some of the cases that stay with her most strongly are those involving victims who entered the courtroom carrying burdens that had little to do with legal terminology.

Last year, Grellner tried two serious child sex-crime cases.

The verdicts mattered, and so did what she saw afterward.

“Watching the relief on the shoulders of the victims when we get a guilty verdict is why I do this job,” she said.

There is no single prosecution she points to as defining the career.

“I do them one at a time,” Grellner said. “You focus one at a time, and you do those one at a time.”

Her peers have recognized that work before.

In 2023, Missouri Lawyers Media selected Grellner as one of its Women’s Justice Award recipients, honoring her in the General Practitioner category. The statewide awards recognize women in the legal profession who demonstrate leadership, integrity, professional achievement, and service.

Three years later, Prosecutor of the Year adds another honor, but this one carries a particular significance for Grellner because it came from others who understand the demands of the job firsthand.

Recognition from fellow prosecutors means they have seen not only courtroom results but the years behind them — the difficult judgment calls, service to the profession, mentoring, special prosecutions and work performed when no one outside the office is watching.

Grellner said she is especially interested in helping younger attorneys develop, both for the profession and for the future of legal practice in the area.

After almost 25 years as a prosecutor, she understands better than most how much the job demands.

She also understands why she has continued doing it.

“I’m just thankful that I’ve been able to do this where I live and in a place that I love,” Grellner said.

The award may carry her name, but she keeps returning to everyone else — her family, her staff, law enforcement, fellow prosecutors, victims and the community she has spent nearly a quarter-century representing.

In other words, her people.