Once I start talking, you will quickly get to know the type of person I am. I am a passionate community servant who puts in hard work and dedicates myself fully to every task. I always look for ways to make processes more efficient and seamless, and I'm always eager to share my ideas and offer advice and guidance. I believe that every goal can be a SMART goal, and I take pride in being an educator who finds the world and its stories endlessly fascinating. I enjoy encouraging those around me to think critically, make new connections and share new ideas.
I come from a poor county in rural West Virginia where there aren’t any stoplights or grocery stores. You had to drive an hour away to do anything, especially since the area has been hit so hard by the ongoing drug epidemic.
As not to get too far into the weeds, I’ll start with the fact that I was a teen mom. I had to grow up pretty quickly, working and finishing school with the help of friends and members of my church who were kind and helped me through single motherhood. I still fondly remember naps at my friend Kristen’s house; those were some of my few restful moments in between shifts at Go-Mart, a restless baby, and homework.
When I began applying for college, I was the first in my family to do so. I had no guidance on how to apply for college and was extremely confused when filling out the FAFSA. Not to mention that I also had a teething baby in my lap all the while. Nonetheless, I applied and was accepted to several schools with generous institutional and local scholarships. I chose to move my one-year-old to Kentucky, where I went to school in Berea.
It was at Berea College that I began studying speech and communication and learned theory-based approaches to persuade, mediate, and target audiences. This part of my education was fortified by the institution’s well-rounded social justice-informed liberal arts curriculum as well as the diverse pool of students that I attended with. I really dove into subjects through the lenses of intersectional feminism and societal accessibility. Those experiences, combined with my own as an LGBTQ+ Appalachian, gave me a unique perspective on underprivileged populations in the United States and their positions within ongoing issues of education, violence, and the like. Additionally, it finally gave me the clear vocabulary I needed to share my personal worldview.
Predictably, my time there yielded some political experiences, such as working on campaigns and volunteering for policy advocacy events to advance platforms and policies to advance those populations. Due to this exposure to many perspectives in a politically charged setting, I am now extremely experienced at communicating the importance of policy reform and social change of many kinds to the audiences that most need to hear it. My friends call me confident, and I will admit that I do come prepared, whether I am presenting at a city council meeting or a Zoom meeting with a state representative.
My public relations skills were further finessed at the infamous S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University where I worked tirelessly— and I mean that— to attain the education needed to begin my own business and help others. I continued my political activism during this time with nonprofit work and volunteering for campaigns that promoted values that I believed in— primarily educational objectives and progressive policies on topics that pertain to equality and equity, such as sheltering the unhoused, poverty, and race.
For a year, my energy was turned to focus on community improvement and closing the rural broadband gap in Appalachia with an Americorps organization called Lead for America. My work was part of a larger initiative to empower rural areas in need of broadband resources and connection. I now firmly believe that universal access to the Internet is a crucial step for a more equitable world.
For the last year, I have served my community tirelessly as a journalist. The many sleepless nights and long days have been some of the best I have ever had, mostly because I know that I am telling stories that people care about. While I personally feel that they are all important, I have been especially excited to share unorthodox features and shine a light on corruption and local issues within the community. My heart swells every time someone stops me in town to say that they read something I have written, and it almost bursts when we get to stop to discuss the particulars and how to move others to take action.
Thank you for taking a few moments to get to know me.