Publicity, community engagement and collaboration for a small market Destination Marketing Organization in Southeast Kansas.

Through my work, we (1) improved awareness of activities and events within our school district itself to the point that both student participation and attendance increased; (2) reduced the spread of rumors by explaining our challenges and decision making to increase understanding, through both in-person conversations and content; (3) showed off our students and staff to give taxpayers as many reasons as possible to care about them; and, (4) radically increased news coverage of our district by serving as a liaison between the district and local media.This included seeking out and preparing stories of interest to these audiences, from narratives and explanatory journalism, to announcements and reminders, and numerous candid and sports photographs.While content was frequently sent to media outlets in neighboring communities, we became our own publisher through flyers and posters, and especially digital media. Facebook stories and photo galleries became expected by parents, taxpayers and even students. Tweets provided competition updates and results (sporting events, FBLA, FFA, etc.). PowerSchool paired with Alert Solutions allowed me to target text messages to parents and staff of specific audiences - examples: Emergency information and Homecoming game reminders went out district-wide; notices and reminders for music program and youth activities outside of the district were only sent to the appropriate grade levels; and, other than homecoming, notices and reminders for sporting events only went to parents of student-athletes participating in each sport.All the while, a commitment to post everything on the school district's website before putting it elsewhere combined with a simple navigation turned our WordPress website into a familiar, true one-stop shop for anything regarding our district.

Prepared daily emails and breaking news alerts. Prepared copy for radio advertisements. Coordinated transition to new multimedia web platform. Supplemented reporter coverage with other content. Monitored online media developments. Edited daily content for news websites. Coached reporters to prepare for web enrichment.Increased Visits Per Day 3x by increasing day-to-day content and supplementing reporter coverage. Cultivated the station's Facebook Page to become the largest social media presence by any news outlet in our market. Continuous updates to our site in the immediate aftermath of the 2011 Joplin, Missouri tornado generated more than 500,000 Pageviews in less than 48 hours.Valued audience usability, unique content that's useful or meaningful, revenue generation that makes sense, while eliminating useless or invaluable processes.

Performed functions as news gatherer: research, interviews, writing, editing, etc. Included coverage of the local devastation and response to the 2007 Kansas Ice Storm - which forced me temporarily into backpack journalism/reporting due to widespread power outages that lasted several days.Working for an "old school publisher" whose paper was still an evening paper, this experience was a crash course in both community reporting and the traditional community news oriented business model:- Show off the community and its people ("refrigerator journalism").- Get the audience information they want to know more about ("concierge journalism").- Help them understand community issues ("explanatory journalism" and "solution journalism").- Truly do these things and the revenue will follow, whether it is advertising or subscriptions.

Weekend and fill-in radio DJ with on-air shift responsibilities, including show preparation and taking listener calls.This and previous stints in radio reinforced the need for how a familiar, top of mind, single point of contact can be an easily accessible reference for all things within the community, including weather, sports scores, upcoming events, rummage sales, and even UFO sightings.

Performed tasks for Program Director to support day-to-day operations. Learned about preparing ad schedules for clients, preparing copy for ad production, producing commercials, generating music logs & ad traffic process and employee search and selection process.

Created a fan Web site for the Pittsburg State University football program of the NCAA Division II. Did research, wrote stories and columns. Promoted the site as a way to bring Gorilla fans together.

On air shift responsibilities including news, weather, live sports broadcasts, and answering phones