My road to journalism — and eventually communications and public relations — began when I failed as an artist. I arrived at Missouri State University after strong junior and senior years in art classes as a high school student in my home city of St. Louis. I was quickly weeded out with a couple of embarrassing C’s in my first two classes.

At the same time, I was getting all A’s in my writing classes, even back to high school. I thought if I can’t be a visual artist, I could paint scenes with words. I attempted a creative writing major but then I came to my senses. I could’ve snagged a creative writing degree but that meant more school. I could barely afford my undergrad so I switched to journalism, which I had an affinity for since high school.

In my classes, I was the only one who hadn’t worked on their high school newspapers, mainly because my school didn’t have one. So I was behind a lot of my classmates and was even behind them after graduation, only able to get a couple freelance gigs in southwest Missouri. But after several months, my amazing dad told me to drop a name of one of the people he delivered mail to (true story) and that would put my application to several Midwest Gannett newspapers on top of the stacks. The Lafayette (Indiana) Journal & Courier was the only paper that contacted me about an opening, which I gladly pursued.

More than 12 years at that publiction laid a strong foundation in my communications and public relations skills, which I’ve since taken to most Indiana universities — Purdue (twice), Butler and IU Indy. I’ve written thousands of stories over the years, produced hundreds of online videos, shot and edited thousands of published photographs, and designed social media graphics, newspaper pages, infographics and much more.

It’s been a long and at times stressful road, but I am thankful to still have passion, drive and creative vigor for the fields of communications, public relations and journalism.