I continued to write through high school, where I served as managing editor of the high school paper and lettered in swimming, basketball and softball.

When I became of age, I worked as an after-school playground manager and a swimming instructor at the YMCA.

I got my first job as a lifeguard the summer after my junior year in high school, where I guarded a small pool at Perdido Bay Country Club.

After graduation and for the next three summers, I worked for NAS Special Services as a lifeguard at NAS Pensacola. During the last year, I was the head lifeguard, assigned to Barrancas Beach.

I majored in journalism and minored in English and psychology at the University of Florida in Gainesville.

Occasionally, I worked as a reporter for The Independent Florida Alligator (UF’s newspaper), played intramural sports and was treated to meals at the Sigma Nu fraternity house, where I was a “little sister” (who still knows nothing about any water balloons that may or may not have been shot from a giant, rooftop slingshot on game days).

After the summer of my sophomore year in college, I worked in prepress production at Pensacola Engraving Co., a printing company and publishers of tabloids and five regional “This Week In TV” magazines.

The first year, I worked in production with a t-square and an Exacto knife. The next year, I was promoted to editor of all the magazines and led the production of five weekly TV guides and four monthlies.

Desktop computers were not yet available, but there was photo-typesetting equipment at the publishing company, and this is where my experience with computers began in 1977.

I worked furiously as an editor that year, until I was denied a raise because I didn’t have a degree.

So, back to school we went… my dog Max and I.

I returned to college with an enthusiasm that nearly overcame itself. I was on a mission, determined to succeed.

As a proofreader at University Presses of Florida (a state-run publishing company, charged with publishing the works of tenured professors), I proofread books on Komodo Dragons, cowboy music, the translated text of an ancient cartographer, and one book in Spanish, even though I do not speak Spanish. 🙂

After graduation, I went to Houston, Texas, to work as a graphic artist at a vanity press publisher which designed covers and published books for self-publishing authors.

I moved with my dog and my world packed into my Chevy Luv truck, which had no radio, so I picked up an harmonica to learn a few tunes along the way.

If you ever need to hear “Camptown Races,” “Dixie,” or “Bring it Home” on harmonica, I’m your girl.

I couldn’t two-step and didn’t have a hat or a gun, so I felt a little out of place in Texas. After a few months, I returned to Florida and founded a small weekly newspaper, The Newberry News, in Newberry, Florida.

I sold ads, had interviews, took photos, and wrote copy. I laid out, typeset and shot pages, and stripped the negs. I drove them to the printer and slept in my car while the presses ran. It was hard work for low pay, but I enjoyed it.

On my way to cover a rodeo for my newspaper one day, I had a car accident and spent the next six months in the hospital.

When I recovered, I gave up the little newspaper and returned to work at The Independent Florida Alligator, this time as operations manager — a full time, permanent, executive staff position.

As Alligator operations manager, I ensured students had what they needed to produce the paper, circulation 32,000, Monday through Friday. The paper hadn’t missed a publication date since it was founded in 1906; it wasn’t happening on my watch. We never missed a date, though we occasionally delivered the morning paper after sunset.

Here, I managed a staff of 40-50 part time workers and a $250,000 annual budget for nearly five years.

In 1987, I married and moved to Vero Beach, Florida, where I worked as a graphic artist in job printing for
about a year.

Later, I secured a job as communications manager for a Robert E. Sibson, a renowned personnel management
consultant, where I published books and marketed the company’s annual report which sold for $20,000.

 

Soon, I became a mother and began to freelance from home, helping students prepare reports and helping others with presentations, newsletters, and resumes.

When an opportunity to work as a resident motel manager came along, I accepted the job, and our family lived there while I continued to freelance for about four years.

I just finished a website for my former motel boss. We are still good friends.

In 1994, I took a job as the marketing administrator at Seald-Sweet Growers, Florida’s largest citrus marketing cooperative. There, I began to learn the produce business, served as tradeshow exhibit coordinator, and created my first website.

Duties also included ad design and submission to trade publications, a weekly, world-wide flier sent weekly by fax, product and event photography, on-hold voice scripts, video production, market research and marketing campaigns.

Eventually, I found my way back into produce marketing when I was hired by Sweet Onion Trading Company in 2003, where once again, I was responsible for tradeshows, advertising, presentations, packaging and materials.

Due to corporate reorganization, I was laid off in July of 2013, and have been seeking employment, volunteering and freelancing since then.

Now I am available for full time employment or freelance work by contract. If there is anything I can do for you, won’t you please let me know?