I saw Wicked at the Fox in July 2023 with one of my best friends. It was a gift from my mom, my brother and his family for Christmas the previous year. I think it was the best gift I ever got. I liked it so much that I bought the sweatshirt.
I also feel like Cal and Joyce Beverly have given me a big gift—one that my partners and me paid for with help from members of the Pulse PTC. But still a gift. Community journalism and the ability to influence and inform people who I care about matters. It was an enormous undertaking and expense to keep The Citizen alive in the last few years. With no salespeople. And staff that left or in some sad cases, passed on. (Ben Nelms, you are missed.)
Cal and Joyce did it. They fielded a lot of complaints for their efforts. Cal is amazing in one solid way—he never seems to care what people think about him. I think that’s how he kept going. Even through the difficulty that was COVID19, where he was reporting daily about our local deaths and sickness rates, even as ad revenues dried up.
I’m not sure how any of us survived that storm, but here we all are, in this community, looking to continue to make a difference. If I have a fault it’s that I care TOO much what you all think. My best friend and I have sworn that we are going to be more like Teflon, letting criticism roll off of us. Like Cal Beverly.
You will not hear me criticize Cal and Joyce Beverly or malign the legacy of The Citizen. Back when I worked at The Citizen, I had a health crisis, and when I tell you that Cal and Joyce Beverly are some of the most decent people on the planet, I truly want you to believe me. Because as both friends, and employers, they functioned more like the best kind of family.
I haven’t agreed with every columnist or the decision to keep running mudslinging. Now they are my decisions, and so I’ll do some things a bit differently. And I figure about half of you will like it and the other half won’t.
My aim is to elevate the discourse in this community. I think we can tell the truth about what is going on and still make it clear that this is the very best place in the world to live. I intend to raise your property values, just by sharing how awesome Fayette and Coweta Counties are.
I’ve lived here for the majority of my life, moving here right out of college. I met my husband in this community while we both worked at Operation Mobilization in Tyrone. I was an international missions journalist. I traveled the world with OM, telling the stories of what our aid workers and missions workers were doing so that they could raise support, and build revenue to do their projects.
From there I worked for The Citizen for seven years. They were good years. I learned how to make ads that work, how to tell more compelling stories. I learned about smart collaboration and I worked hand in hand with an amazing Sales Director, Joyce Beverly and some of the best Advertising Consultants a young woman could know. That includes the late Diann Cupertino, who I was always trying to beat in sales numbers and finally did in my last year. She was an inspiration and I was honored to help write her obituary this last year when she lost her fight to cancer.
After running my successful marketing agency for the last fifteen years, I’ve learned how to run projects, take care of clients, create winning marketing strategies.
Along the way I’ve met some extraordinary people, including my business partners Tricia Stearns and Jason Bass. They started The Pulse PTC. They brought me in to revamp it. I suggested we acquire The Citizen as part of our media empire. And they have been with me every step of the way. They are both writing columns for us. I hope you’ll appreciate their wisdom and energy, the way that I have.
Our first priority is to make The Citizen effective for the business community. Making The Citizen work for our local businesses is the ONLY way that community journalism will survive here. If you’d like to market through us, send a message to our contact form. You’ll reach me. And please tell our advertisers and our sponsored content supporters that you saw it in The Citizen. Shop local.
I recently put out a call to the local facebook groups asking for suggestions. Overwhelmingly, people were looking for balanced journalism that covers local government, people, events, schools and businesses. With my non-existent budget for reporters that will be on me for a hot minute. The more businesses step into to join us in our mission and appreciate our massive number of unique visitors each month, the more that we will be able to report on all the things that matter to you.
I’ve already made some changes. You’ll see some new columnists—I hope you’ll enjoy their writings. We will also have some pictorials from some of our local nature photographers. One of my favorite features is Get a Pet of the Week. We are partnering with a no kill rescue, Royal Animal Refuge, to spotlight some of the great dogs they have. We’ll bring you some cats from the shelter, too. (My cat Peanut Butter insists.)
I have plans to do more. But I want to show, not tell, so I’ll save those intros for when we begin running the features. Our plans for The Citizen are taking flight. Now, I really want to see the Wicked movie, but I’ve been too busy doing The Citizen this week. I’m just over here defying gravity.
