I never really stopped being a journalist. I just stopped working in a newsroom.
For years, my career took me in directions I never expected—from Wyoming newspapers and television news to healthcare and communications. But through every chapter, I kept coming back to one thing: people and their stories.
So becoming the editor of Daytona City Lifestyle doesn’t feel like starting something new. It feels like coming home.
My love of journalism began in Casper, Wyoming, where I studied journalism and English. One of my most formative experiences was working for the Casper Star-Tribune. I still have some of those old newspaper pages. Looking at them now is surreal. There is my name beneath stories I wrote nearly two decades ago.
I wrote about a man who used painting to cope with a disability, a church creating a youth center, community events and the arts. The subjects were different, but the common thread was always people.
I was drawn to people who cared deeply about something. I still am.
My journalism career also took me into television news as a reporter for KCWY, the NBC affiliate in Casper. Television taught me to tell stories differently—to think about interviews, pictures, sound, narration and timing, and to make viewers care quickly.
Print taught me to slow down and ask better questions. Television taught me to get to the heart of a story. Both taught me that people are what make a story worth telling.
Eventually, my career moved beyond journalism and into healthcare. I became a Licensed Practical Nurse and worked in rehabilitation and medical settings before joining Halifax Health in 2019. For nearly six years, I worked in Employee Health as an LPN.
At first glance, journalism and nursing may seem worlds apart. For me, they had more in common than I expected.
Journalism taught me how to ask questions; nursing taught me how to listen. Both taught me empathy, communication and the importance of understanding the person in front of me. Those lessons still influence every interview, conversation and story I approach today.
In June 2025, I transitioned into Marketing and Communications at Halifax Health as a Community Health Navigator. I was writing, interviewing and connecting with the community again.
I realized the journalist in me had never disappeared. She had simply gained more life experience.
That is why becoming editor feels so meaningful. I bring with me the reporter, writer, television journalist, nurse and communications professional I have become—but I'm also getting an opportunity to rediscover Daytona through its people.
As editor, I want this magazine to feel connected to the community it represents. I want to introduce you to people you may have passed at a local event, encountered in business or seen around town without ever knowing their stories.
I want us to discover the entrepreneurs taking chances, artists creating something unexpected, organizations changing lives and neighbors doing remarkable things without seeking recognition.
Because journalism taught me one lesson I still believe: there is always more to the story.
There is always another question, another perspective and another person worth meeting.
After all these years, I’m still that reporter who wants to ask one more question.
Only now, instead of walking into a Wyoming newsroom with a notebook in my hand, I’m walking into our community with a magazine in mind.
And I couldn’t be more excited about the stories we’re going to tell together.