Is
this OSUM Alumnae’s Move to North Carolina Going to Go Smoothly?
“How
am I going to get all my packing done and get out of Marion?” is what OSUM
Alumnae Tabitha Clark wondered aloud as we spoke about her day on Monday,
August 27th. She asked a Magic 8 Ball if her move was going to go smoothly, and
the answer was “yes.”
Tabitha
has spent the year since graduation reporting all the crime news at The Marion
Star, and even won an award for breaking news, but now she feels it is time to
move on. While she loves to write, loves her Ohio roots and loves being a
Buckeye, she is not seeking to further her career in any of Ohio’s larger
market newspapers.
Since
Tabitha feels it is really hard to go from a small market paper to a large
market in this state, she decided to look beyond her “borders.” She is leaving
this Thursday for North Carolina to write for The Jacksonville Daily News.
Tabitha
was born and raised in Marion, Ohio. She
graduated from Marion Harding High School in 1998. She married after high school and moved to
Jacksonville, North Carolina with her husband, a Marine stationed at New River
Air Station. They later separated and
she moved back home to Marion with her two children in 2005. Tabitha started classes here on the Marion
Campus in the winter 2007 and graduated with her Bachelor of Arts Degree in
2011 with a magna cum laude and honors research distinction in English.
I
first met Tabitha in one of Professor Ben McCorkle’s classes, oddly enough a
BLOGGING class, where she was a sophomore and “tutoring” our class as part of her
independent study class in basic writing pedagogy.
She
found her start in journalism on the Marion Campus as student editor and head
writer of For Insight and News (FIN). FIN
was the monthly campus news publication for over three years, but
unfortunately, it is no longer printed.
In
September 2011, just a couple of months after her graduation, Tabitha found
herself employed with The Marion Star. After
all the work she’d done to get through school while raising two children on her
own and working, just having to go to work eight hours a day seemed like a
breeze.
She
said, “It was odd because of how much I had done in school, writing my thesis,
writing papers for classes, homework, it was so odd to just have a job and go
to work, it was almost like a vacation to just have a job and not go to school
and work.”
She
feels blessed because she went to school for writing and she is working as a
writer. She was published in five
editions of the Cornfield Review, took ten creative writing classes with Dr.
Stuart Lishan, and she was instrumental in the resurrection of the Creative
Writing Club (prior to KaPow) on campus here, where she held the position of
Vice President.
At
one point she had her hand in everything literary on this campus plus taking
classes. She is “blessed” because this
is what she wanted to do and she is doing it.
She parlayed her talent, drive and experience into a career.
I
asked her how she came to apply for North Carolina and she said “that’s a really
funny story.”
She
has actually wanted to move back to North Carolina ever since 2005. One day,
she randomly sent an email to the managing editor of the Jacksonville daily
newspaper, along with a few clips and information that she would be visiting in
July 2012 if the editor was interested in meeting with her. The editor wrote her back two weeks later and
told her there were no positions open at that time but to get in touch with her
before her NC trip. Two weeks later,
after Tabitha returned the email with a “thank you for responding,” the editor
responded asking for Tabitha’s resume.
A
few weeks passed, and Tabitha thought the position had been filled. Three days
before she went on vacation (July 18), she received a phone call asking for an
interview. Tabitha had the interview and
then two weeks later was offered the job.
She went after this job. She knew she wanted to live in Jacksonville,
and she pursued a job that put her in the place she wanted to live.
Tabitha
is the author of her own story, making whatever edits necessary in the plot to
achieve success by the epilogue. Strangely
enough, Stuart Lishan just popped into the room we are talking in.
Tabitha
has accomplished everything she wanted to in her undergraduate career and more. She received many writing awards,
scholarships, including the C. Eugene Maynard Award of Excellence. She went out
on a “high note.”
Her
time at OSUM taught her that she could accomplish something, and gave her the
confidence to move forward into her journalism career and future as a writer.
She cherishes the support she still receives from professors like Dr. Stuart Lishan,
Dr. Ben McCorkle and Dr. Sara Crosby. They will be her mentors and role models
for years to come.
I
asked Tabitha to consider writing for this blog, so we will watch for some of
her work from the warm shores of North Carolina. She is going back to the place where her
whole 128-page thesis took place – the town of Jacksonville. Call Me Tabs: the Making and Breaking of a
Marine Corps Wife is available for viewing at the Ohio State Knowledge
Bank, https://kb.osu.edu/dspace/handle/1811/48661.
By:
Val - August 27, 2012
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