For the record, I have never wanted to leave this place.
I caught the journalism bug in high school. Writing gave me the chance to speak out against injustice while protecting my inner, introverted baby Goth. In college, I continued writing for newspapers, and when I transferred to Southwest Texas State in 1995, I responded to a classified ad at the San Marcos Daily Record for a position as an ad builder.
I interviewed with Karen Ray, then the composing manager and still a dear friend, and she hired me on the spot. Within months, I branched into feature writing, covering local music and writing movie reviews while still building advertising part-time.
Back in East Texas, my Dad was laid off, so my parents sold our childhood home and moved to San Marcos as well. The Record was hiring a copy editor. My Mom had done copy writing and editing in Beaumont, so she came on board at the Record in November 1995. She remained here until she retired as the Classified Advertising Manager in 2023.
Meanwhile, I graduated from Southwest Texas State in 1998. I took a job at Steve Jackson Games in Austin designing board games and RPGs. Fun job, but sadly, the company downsized (two weeks into my maternity leave) and I spent the next seven months blissfully chilling with my newborn until Rowe Ray, the Managing Editor, reached out to see if I was interested in returning to the Record as the Neighbors Editor.
Thus I came back as a fulltime member of the editorial staff, where I remained until my ex-husband suffered a catastrophic mental breakdown in 2001. In the aftermath of this devastating life change, I had to make some difficult decisions. Literally overnight, I had become a single Mom to a toddler. For a while, I tried to make it work. My grandmother helped out with childcare while I continued full-time at the Record. However, covering events around town and meeting late-night deadlines made for some difficult challenges. My coworkers were extremely supportive, and my son, Parker — now a full-grown 27 year old — spent many evenings in a play pen while I finished editing and pasting up pages. (Everything is digital now, but back in the day, we pasted up pages by hand using a waxer, a roller and an exacto blade.)
With Parker’s elementary school days approaching, I made the Big Scary Career Move into teaching. I continued working at the Record while earning teaching certificates in English Language Arts, Special Education and Writing. I loved my family here at the Record — Robin Blackburn, Kevin Gafford, the Rays, and Anita Miller, to name a few — so it was with mixed emotions that I accepted a teaching position in Austin at Parades Middle School.
Happily, my Daily Record story didn’t end there. I continued to write movie reviews (can you believe they paid me to do that?), a regular feature on kid-friendly activities in the Hill Country, and every summer, I built ads for Rattler Magazine. This continued until 2014, when I took a teaching job in Seoul, South Korea — but even then, I submitted travel articles to the Rays, so my work with the Record extended overseas.
After Parker and I returned home from Seoul, we had saved enough money to simply rest and contemplate our next steps. Parker graduated from San Marcos High School, and I wrote a couple of books, which I sold and from which I made enough money to add a few more years to my hiatus. Occasionally, I covered for my Mom at the front desk of the Record, and I continued to build ads for the Rattler.
Then in 2018, I began as a relief driver for the delivery run between San Marcos and Marble Falls. Before long, the regular driver for this route graduated from Texas State, and I became the regular delivery driver. Twenty-five years in, and I officially had my first paper route.
Somewhere during that time, I also took over a design position for the Dripping Springs Century News, which was built in-office at the Record. Not long after, I began writing features for Rachel Sonnier, who was the Neighbors Editor at the time. When she got a job as the communications officer in Kyle, I once again resumed that position, and that’s where I’ve been ever since.
But I also took on designing for The Marble Falls Highlander, the Burnet Bulletin and The Wimberley View — work that I have found deeply rewarding, though the tight print schedule meant fewer hours to dedicate to my first love: Journalism. This is also rewarding, but literally in this case as I won an award at Texas Press Association last year for my feature on Green Heron Bookshop.
Now it’s September 2025, and I have been employed by the San Marcos Record for 30 years. When prospective employers ask me about gaps in my resume, I can confidently say there are none, because I have been here in some form all this time.
Even though I’m technically leaving as a full-time employee as of Friday, Sept. 5, I will still be covering local events — particularly stories for those amazing Texas State University Department of Theatre & Dance students who go on to Broadway and Texas Performing Arts — but others as well, because I love our stories. And now, you have mine, too: The story of how I love this town, and I love the Record, and all the friends I’ve made along the way. Thanks for everything. I am so grateful to know you.
Dalton, Jonathan, Karen G., Megan, Haley, Stormy, Barney, Colton, John, Bekah, Connie, Teresa and Lauren: We made a great team, and I love you all so much.
