As the newest employee in my role as the Department Manager, I have found myself warmly welcomed by this ROTC community with the Cadre and Cadets. The community is so strong among the students that I have been drawn and begun attending morning physical training (PT) sessions with our team. My attendance has been well received, and many of the cadets tell me how they feel that our entire Cadre and staff team is extremely connected, and that this is very encouraging to them. We train our cadets to lead with strong emphasis on values & ethics, personal development, officership, tactics & techniques, critical thinking, and problem solving within the ROTC program. The cadets spend much of their time building a team environment, and working together to accomplish the goals of this program. We strive to engage them in a learning environment focused on being strong leaders and building lifelong personal and professional development. Our cadets are sharp and focused. We have students in our program with exceptional academic achievements, and this program encourages them to be lifelong learners and educators. Detachment 290 is a team, we are a community, and most importantly we are family, and I could not be more proud to be a part of this unified force.

I tend to view professional development opportunities with a slight degree of suspicion.   “So, you think I should take time away from my cram-packed schedule to attend an all-day session with an ambitious and somewhat ambiguous title like Managing Multiple Priorities?  I’m barely staying on top of things as it is, and besides, ain’t nobody got time for that.”  However, if I have learned anything from Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, it is that effective people make time to plan ahead and work on developing good habits.  So, I signed up for Friday’s training.

Through a combination of humorous personal anecdotes, hands-on activities, and straightforward wisdom, our trainer, Sally O’Boyle of Fred Pryor Seminars, guided us from a general assessment of our time management challenges to series of actionable steps to remedy our personal management pitfalls.  For me, the lessons on priority-setting and procrastination were especially helpful.  Rather than go into too much detail there, here are a few tips from which we all can benefit:

My husband, Bill, and I live here in Lexington and have a 24 year old daughter, Courtney.  We also have a 9 year old Chocolate Lab, Sammi, who thinks she is 2 and keeps us on our toes.  I am originally from Lexington, but was transplanted to Charlotte in 1981 thanks to IBM.  I returned to Lexington after my freshman year of college in 1989 to spend the summer with my grandmother.  I fell in love with Lexington and didn’t return to North Carolina, and decided to establish my residency before continuing my education.  During that year, I became a mom and had to put my college off for a while. 

I grew up in Middlesboro, KY. The town is as far south and east in the state that you can go, situated on the KY, TN and VA border. I met my husband Bill while performing in the local community theater. We moved to Lexington to attend UK in 2002. We love it so much, we stayed. I graduated from UK with a BA in English in 2005. We welcomed our first child into the world this past April.

Before working as a full time employee here, I was a manager at for a residential property leasing company. I’ll never forget the day I decided to apply for a job at UK. It was a beautiful day in September, blue sky and the sun shining brightly. I was driving through campus thinking, I’d really like to be back here, this is where I need to be. A few weeks later, I was hired! After six years, I still believe that this was the best decision I could have made.

What do you do in your spare time? Between a seven month old, Piper, and a nine year old English Springer Spaniel, Blaze, I don’t have much spare time. Evenings and weekends are spent with our little family. I wouldn’t have it any other way!

I was born in Johnson City, Tennessee and moved to Kentucky my 3^rd grade year. I have 4 half siblings (2 sisters and 2 brothers) and I am the oldest of the 5. I started working for UK in the summer of 1999 as a STEPS employee after graduating high school a year early. I graduated with a BS in Family in Consumer Sciences in the 2006 from the University of Kentucky.   

1. What do you do in your spare time?

I have a 9 year daughter name Kianti who speaks Spanish as her second language and is in competitive gymnastics. I have volunteered with/ for CASA which is a Court Appointed Special Advocate for abused and neglected children in Fayette County for past few years.

2. Are you a cat person or a dog person (or do you like another species entirely)?

Although I am not an animal lover….my daughter and her father are…so we have two beautiful pit bulls…that are the sweetest things ever. We have 2 fish tanks and every now and then we have turtles that my daughter finds wandering outside.

Born and raised in Owensboro, KY.  Moved to Lexington in 1997.  Have two fabulous kids – Ben (age 10) and Madelyn (age 9).  Have had an interesting career including working for Mayor Newberry as the City’s WEG liaison and producer of the 17 day festival in downtown Lexington during WEG.  I started at UK in March 2014. 

Favorite

Ambition/Goal for next year

finish my MBA and begin my PhD

I love ALL animals

I have one dog, two cats.  I rode horses until I became pregnant with Ben (my first child).  If my kids get their way – we will add a bunny and a hamster at Christmas.

Most interesting place I have been

Cologne Cathedral in Köln, Germany. 

Favorite food

can’t pick just one - my mom’s chicken & dumplings and porcupine meatballs

The A&S United Way campaign GOAL for 2014 is $30,000. We started the campaign with the $115 donation from the Chili Cook-Off. As on Monday, October 10, A&S Faculty and Staff have donated $2,674.96, which is just 8.9% of our goal.

Payroll deduction is the preferred method of giving. A tutorial on how to accomplish this in MyUK can be found here. Please note that in order for you to continue an existing Payroll deduction contribution, YOU MUST go into MyUK and authorize the donation for the 2015 calendar year. Existing contributions do not roll over from one year to the next.

If you prefer to make a one-time cash or check donation, please reach out to me and I will bring you a donation form to fill out. 

Please make plans now to participate in our Fall Potluck on Friday, October 31. You can RSVP at this link. If you would like to dress in costume and compete in the Halloween Costume Contest, participants are asked to pay a $2 entry fee which will be donated to United Way of the Bluegrass. 

I was asked to provide a picture I loved but it had to have me in it so thank you Dick Gilbreath!

I have been married to Roy for 24+ years, we have 3 amazing children, Andrew, Elizabeth and Emily, I am very proud of the wonderful adults they have grown into. I grew up on a small resort island, Wildwood, in Southern New Jersey. The house I grew up in was literally across the street from the beach. It sounds fun but summers didn’t consist of lounging on the beach and playing at the boardwalk, the local people began working as young as the law would allow from the time it started getting warm until the first hint of fall! We moved to KY 22 years ago and I have now been working at UK for 10 years 8 of which have been in Geography.

1. What do you do in your spare time?

I have to admit, in my spare time I’m pretty lazy. I do a little cooking, hang out with my husband and my kids if they happen to stop by but also like to watch history documentaries and old TV shows:  Dick Van Dyke, I Love Lucy and the list goes on. Napping is high on that list too!

2. What is your favorite movie?

1. What do you do in your spare time? 

While keeping up with two kids, I do my very best to make an attempt to go to the drag strip, truck pulls, or dyno events.

2. What is your favorite movie or book?

Major Payne, hands down.

3. Are you a cat person or a dog person (or do you like another species entirely)?

Love them both! I have two cats now, Chevy and Smokey, but hopefully we will be able to get a dog next summer.

4. What is the most interesting/your favorite place you've been? 

Cairns, Australia. Even though we couldn’t swim in the ocean because of the jellyfish, it was by far one of the most beautiful places I have ever visited.

5. What is your favorite food?

I love summer time foods, good ole burgers and hotdogs (slightly burnt of course) off the grill.