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Here's where I've been, what I've done. It's just a story. Maybe someday I'll turn it into a sock puppet show. I was born in Wichita, Kan., to Duke and Diane Rush, two talented newspaper folk. I spent many afternoons in the Wichita Eagle-Beacon newsroom, drawing cartoons of the Amazing Flying Potato for patient reporters and copy editors. I was a Girl Scout, a member of my church youth group, choir and puppet troupe (something that came naturally to me), played the violin and was a staff photographer for my high school yearbook and newspaper. I studied a couple years at the "Harvard of the high plains" (Fort Hays State University in Hays, Kan.), in their leadership program and my major was Communications. The highlight of my time there was being an R.A. for my residence hall. I loved to get to know my fellow students, help mentor them and keep them safe and, my favorite part was programming. I was a member of RHA and was on Hall Council. I also was a hall 'host" and the publisher of our newsletter my freshman year. I transferred to The University of Kansas, where I followed in the parental footsteps and studied Journalism, but not without warning from some of the staff at the Eagle. While there, I worked at KU Info, A telephone line that anybody in the world can call and have their questions answered by smarty pants like me and the other fine folks who worked with me. We answered questions about the campus, local weather and sports, why the sky was blue, how to pry your Superglued-hands apart and any assortment of sex questions. Ah, Freshmen! Two and a half years of copy editing and page layout at The University Daily Kansan, a then award-winning student paper, and other fun classes like Human Sexuality in Everyday Life, Improvisation, 1950's American Literature, as well as some Spanish hell, I graduated, knowing that I wasn't interested in living in a small town and working at nights — I saw that firsthand when I was growing up. So, I decided to volunteer for The Americorps National Volunteer Service In St. Paul, Minn. My mornings were spent in a low-income preschool, and in the afternoons I was in various recreation centers to help run an after school program. I moved there in January. It was cold. For a long time. My favorite thing was getting to help with the annual May Day festival, a parade and pageant in a city park that thousands of people witness and participate in. The theater that hosts it is called Heart of the Beast Puppet And Mask Theatre, which was the first real puppet theater I experienced. I always loved puppetry, but until I visited Heart of the Beast, I didn't know the half of it. Puppetry is such a vast and varied world of creative storytelling. An opportunity to spend a year as a Web content development intern at Morris Digital Works, The interactive branch of Morris Communications, a newspaper publishing company, led me to Augusta, Ga., home of James Brown (I met him the first night I was there) and the Augusta Mad Dogs men's rugby team. I helped found The Augusta Furies, a women's team. They called me Bruiser. After surviving "Winter Blast 2000," A snow storm that paled in comparison to what I experienced daily in Minnesota, I moved to Atlanta and got a day job while I occasionally spent my nights on stage or at rugby practice with The Atlanta Heat women's rugby team. I was lucky enough to be accepted into the University of Connecticut's Puppet Arts M.A. program In 2002. Those two years were filled with fun, stress, Xacto blade cuts, creativity, performance and friends. And lots of snow. Once I graduated and looked at how much student loan debt I had accrued, I did what any reasonable person might: went into forbearance and started another graduate program. I was back in Atlanta, at a boot camp,
I mean, school called Portfolio
Center. Ironically, I took a few jobs as a puppeteer,
most notably at the Center
for Puppetry Arts To help pay for design school.
If nothing else, the people at PC taught me enough design
skills to ruin any outing. I see bad kerning, horrible image
placement and lazy "handwritten"
fonts everywhere I go. I also see good design that I drool over
all the time. Thanks Portfolio Center! |