I successfully transitioned my experiences as an associate editor of a national trade magazine and Consumer's Digest magazine to alumni publications. I have now written for a variety of them, including the quarterly Magazine of Sigma Chi, which represents the interests of more than 250,000 members, The Delta of Sigma Nu, and the Key of Kappa Kappa Gamma women's fraternity. Below are some of my work samples. Please click on the highlighted text underneath the images to read the story.
The ability to tell stories about important topics is what I love about writing. One particularly moving story I wrote for The Delta of Sigma Nu Fraternity is about Ray Pavy, a standout high school basketball player and Indiana University player whose future was tragically altered in a car accident. Pavy developed paraplegia as a result of the accident, which took the life of his fiance. After he healed, he returned to the university and traded in his basketball jersey for a front-row seat along the court to watch his teammates play, including his high school rival, who went on to play in the NBA. This story highlights how Pavy lived a successful life, despite what happened to him.
This award-winning feature story for The Magazine of Sigma Chi about Michigan State member Blair Montgomery, who was an undergraduate at the time, illustrated to readers the challenges he went through when he led the charge, along with with chapter advisors and other chapter officers, to eradicate hazing from his chapter. The situation forced him to chose integrity over friendship as many of his brothers were removed from the group. Inside of the four-page spread is a sidebar I wrote that offers readers direction for what to do if their chapter is hazing.
Determined to walk again after he was paralyzed from the waist down in a 2005 car accident as a student at the University of South Carolina, Adam Gorlitsky raised money for and bought an exoskeleton. The exoskeleton represented many things to him, and initially he believed it would help him maintain dating relationships and prevent breakups with women who could not see a life with him because of his disability. Ultimately, however, his outlook changed, and he learned to walk with the exoskeleton for himself, not because he felt that he needed to. Story published in The Magazine of Sigma Chi.
Country music star Cole Swindell got his start by selling T-shirts at Luke Bryan concerts while he was writing songs; the two are members of the same fraternity chapter. Eventually, Swindell found his own success, and this story, which is unique because of its interviews with his mom and chapter brothers, illustrates how he did it. Story published in The Magazine of Sigma Chi.