Hello community! I joined The Mountain-Ear team in 2017. I started out editing a few hours a week and then the work turned into editing more hours a week. Then, I was asked to write for the paper. I believe my first answer was no. Our publisher Barbara Hardt has a way of gently repeating her requests.

I soon found myself as a copy editor, journalist and photographer. I cover community news and much of the Nederland school news. I have also written Mountain Folk Tales and some history articles. I love interviewing the amazing people in our community and sharing their stories. We need to see how events and people of the past and present make our lives richer today.

Working for The Mountain-Ear has been an unexpected path in my life. It has challenged me in more ways than I thought it would, professionally and personally. To the late night emails when we need to get the paper to press to helping the paper survive COVID. Seeing the value of a local community paper has had quite an impact on me.

I grew up in Indiana, South Dakota and Wisconsin. I have a BA degree in secondary social studies education and a MA in social, multicultural and linguistically diverse education. My teaching career started in the 1990s at a high school in a village in Slovakia. A fantastic experience that was. I extended my time in Central Europe and moved to Prague, Czech Republic, and attended the Univerzita Karlova (Charles University). Always looking for opportunities to learn about the culture and the people I volunteered to teach an English class at the university as well. The late 1990s was an amazing time to be in Central Europe.

Today I live in Gilpin County with my two children. My kids attend Nederland schools and are enjoying learning to use the camera when they join me to cover events for The Mountain-Ear. I also teach English Language Development at Nederland Elementary.

I believe the opportunities to learn are endless, there is always time to be kind, and social justice is a passion of mine. To that means, I am back in school getting another degree in educational sustainability, social justice. As a society we need to change the systems that degrade and shame people. There is much work to be done.

I hope in the coming year we are willing to learn from each other in the Peak to Peak community. I hope we take the time to care for our neighbors and support each other.