How I Found Journalism.

My first clear memory of writing a “news story” was in 1972. I was 7. With a pencil and a sheet of that wide-spaced, grade-school paper, I wrote about Alabama Gov. George Wallace after he was shot on May 15, 1972, during his second attempt to become U.S. president. My dad filed away my story in his folder, labeled “Karen Elizabeth Thurston,” where he kept everything he thought merited saving.

An old-school, truth-seeking investigative journalist, Dad taught me to communicate honestly and transparently in everything I do. I’ve learned that builds trust and authenticity.

Dad never outwardly pointed me toward journalism, and I never expressed much interest in it as a youngster or young adult. I wanted to be a barn manager, restaurant owner, chef, psychologist, law enforcement officer, teacher, nurse, to name a few.

In high school, I worked at McDonald’s. It was a lot more than “burger flipping,” as my dad called it. I learned so much from the manager who hired me, Richard. He held high expectations for those he hired — there was no such thing as idle time. And Richard would check your work. If it sucked, he’d tell you, “If you’re going to do it, do it right.” I still work and live by those words. My strong work ethic started with my job at McDonald’s.

After high school, I started a part-time job as a news clerk at the Tallahassee Democrat (thanks, Dad). About 2½ years later, I was promoted to full-time features reporter. That was an exciting day! I was just 21 years old, and I was a full-time features writer. A year later, I moved to the news desk and covered whatever needed to be covered, including the police beat, drownings, deaths and murder, city and county government, regional courts, elementary education, economic development, real estate and more. I loved the work and the pace. I went giddy with delight when I’d see my byline. The journalism bug bit me hard. That was that. I was all in.

I left the newspaper, but I’ve never left writing and communications.

Throughout my career, exceptional writing and editing have been my core skills. I’ve built my broader integrated communications skills from those essential abilities. I am passionate about communicating clearly and precisely. I’m attentive to the nuances in our language and I choose words skillfully. I am also accomplished in marketing, social media, community outreach, public and media relations, publication production (print and digital) and content creation (web, social, marketing).

I have been truly fortunate to have had great mentors during my career. My Florida Funeral Directors Association (FFDA) boss, Jan, showed me the value of my professional community by not only supporting my participation in the Tallahassee Society of Association Executives (now Florida Society of Association Executives), but funding my membership, too. Marketing and advertising pro, John, did the creative work for the magazines I produced for the Florida Police Chiefs Association (FPCA) and the FFDA. He so willingly shared his knowledge of design and magazine production, including the best way to organize all the magazines’ monthly stories and photographs so his graphics staff could follow easily. He’s one reason I’m super organized in my approach to production and project management. One of my executive directors showed me how to be a great supervisor and how to build a happy, highly productive, high-performing team.

At the Florida Dental Association, in addition to overseeing all aspects of communications, marketing, membership and agency relations, I worked directly with the executive director to serve as an additional staff liaison to the Executive Committee, Board of Trustees, House of Delegates and several committees and task groups. This provided me with extensive experience in association governance, which was essential to earning my Certified Association Executive designation from the American Society of Association Executives: “the Certified Association Executive (CAE) credential is the marker of a committed association professional who has demonstrated the wide range of knowledge essential to manage an association in today’s challenging environment.” I held my CAE from 2001 through 2014, when I let it go after leaving the association industry and moving into health-care marketing.

Never were my skills more tested than after I established a nonprofit charity in 2006 — Broken Hearts of the Big Bend (later known as Broken Hearts of Florida). I founded Broken Hearts to support, educate and connect families affected by congenital heart disease and other pediatric heart diseases. Families like mine. (My younger son was born with Scimitar Syndrome, though he wasn’t correctly diagnosed until he was nearly a year old.) I knew that Broken Hearts would never succeed without robust local community outreach, a polished public and media relations campaign, a user-friendly, easy-to-understand website, an active membership “recruitment” and retention program, and building a strong online community through a dynamic social-media presence. It worked. Broken Hearts started out in 2006 with three Tallahassee families and grew to more than 500 families and individuals in 2016 from Central Florida and throughout the northeast and northwest coasts of Florida.

These days, I enjoy helping people and companies succeed by helping them develop communications tools and programs that lead to thriving lives and businesses. I hope you’ll allow me to assist you!

If you have a project you’d like to discuss, email me at KarenThurstonChavez@gmail.com
or call me at 850-900-6021.