| Julie Walton 1st Marriage: Michael Shaver - 14 Years 2 Sons: Bradley - 7 yrs. & Gregory - 20 mos. e-mail: [email protected] |
| Highlights / Accomplishments: I work in the newsroom of The New York Times as the night manager of the graphics department. As a journalism student at the University of South Carolina, working for the New York Times was one of those crazy dreams - you know, like when you're clarinet section leader of the Irmo High School band and you dream of playing at Carnegie Hall someday. (I've long since given up on that one!) I never thought, as a child growing up in Aiken and Irmo, that I would end up in New York City, driving through Times Square every night, and working for the greatest newspaper in the world. It's an interesting and exciting job, though most of the time my work ends up as bird cage liner the next day. I started at the Times in 1990 during the Persian Gulf war. I realized after the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993, when my diagrams of the building made the front page, that the graphics we create do tell an important story. A year later, I was at the Trade Center working on a follow up story about security improvements and I stood in the very spot they called "Ground Zero" at the time. Six people had died just steps from where I was standing. On the way home that night, I cried and felt a foreboding anxiety that something similar could easily happen again. On the morning of Sept. 11th, I was at my home in New Jersey when a friend called and screamed at me to turn on the TV. I said, "What channel?" She said, "ANY channel!" By then, both towers had been hit and I instantly knew it had happened again. I tried calling my office, but the phone lines weren't working, so I tried to dial up my work computer from the one I have at home. It worked. I spent the rest of that day taking phone calls from reporters at the scene and emailing reports in to my office. (I would type some, and then wait for the reporter to stop crying. Meanwhile, my phone didn't stop ringing as members of my family back home in South Carolina called to make sure I was ok. Thankfully, everyone in my family was fine. But several people from my town didn't make it home that night. And I lost two friends.) As the days passed, the Times graphics department published many diagrams of the World Trade Center site, based on reporting from our staff of over 30 graphics editors and artists. We later discovered that the Mayor's office reproduced our graphics each day and handed them out to scores of rescue and recovery teams, and that our diagrams were enlarged to six feet tall and routinely used in the Mayor's command center to help workers find their way around. I have to admit, it felt good to know we were doing our small part to help. By day, I'm a stay-at-home mom with two boys: Bradley, 7, and Gregory, 20-months. My husband, Mike, works during the day and takes over as primary care-giver at night. (Bradley refers to us as "Mom, our day manager" and "Dad, our night boss.") I love being home with my boys, volunteering in Bradley's school, being baseball team mom and choir mom at church, organizer of our town's Summer Adventure Club, and just being around during the day to hang out with the neighborhood kids. I always say no job is as important as parenting, for in the end, the only thing that will matter is the people I love and the people who love me. Of course, it doesn't hurt if you make a living doing a job you love, too. To read my "Thoughts and Quotes" go to http://www.coffeedrome.com/julie.html To read more about my experiences at the New York Times following the World Trade Center disaster, go to http://www.coffeedrome.com/juliewtc.html |
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| "Check out Julie's trees" at http://www.coffeedrome.com/jtree2.html |
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| July 1, 2002 |