About me

I grew up on the family farm in Brookfield, Missouri, where we raised Angus cattle and I had oodles of timber and space to carve out many young adventures.

My dad was a Marine pilot during the Vietnam War before joining my grandparents back home on the family farm. So in addition to raising cattle and cash crops, he was a mechanic, a weather forecaster, a businessman, a soil expert, and a general fixer-upper of whatever needed fixed. Sadly, he passed away in 2007.

My mom is from New York and was a certified beautician before becoming a stay-at-home mom and a business partner with my dad. As a farm wife, she learned to keep accounts to the penny and knew how to stretch a buck. As my brother and I got older, she worked in the school cafeteria. After a few years of staying on the farm after my dad passed away, she decided Maryville was the place for her and moved to be closer to my family.

I graduated magna cum laude from Northwest Missouri State University with degrees in broadcasting and sociology.

I've yet to learn how to the play the violin despite never having had a lesson.

Neither can I play the piano...after 10 YEARS of lessons.

I think there's a lesson in that....

My husband, Jon, and I have been married for 16 years. Our son, Gabe, is a freshman at Maryville High School where he plays football and basketball and is preparing for a career in engineering. Jon is a physical therapist at MOSAIC/Maryville, and I’m the director of communications for the Benedictine Sisters in Clyde, Missouri. Jon's parents, Bill and Dorothy Baldwin, are retired educators.