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I was born in the 1978 Blizzard in Chillicothe, Missouri.  My parents, Steve and Shelley Tate, had to drive behind our neighbor’s snow plow just to get to the hospital because the Chillicothe Street Department hadn’t made it to our neighborhood.  I have two siblings, Erin (Tate) Carlton and Michael Tate, of whom I am very proud.  I also have lots of fun stories about growing up with them, but you’ll have to email me for those. 
Some of my favorite activities as a kid were playing with my cousins (at their house, at their grandma’s farm, at school, at Mom and Dad’s hardware store, wherever) Shawn and Melanie.  We created all kinds of games and adventures to entertain ourselves or get out of having to snap beans and shell peas.  Our families had gardens and canned the veggies from those gardens in the summer, so it was like having two extra siblings around and they, with Michael and Erin, had to take orders from me, as the oldest!  How they put up with me, I’ll never know, but it was really fun to have the extra family around.
I attended Bishop Hogan School for kindergarten through eighth grade, where I developed my initial love for basketball.  Originally, Mom pretty much had to force me to join the 5th & 6th grade girls’ basketball team, but once I was playing and learning the game, I really had a ball.  I continued playing through junior high and wound up being the starting center for the freshman team at Chillicothe High School.  I’m pretty sure this was mainly because I could jump and play defense, as I was a pretty horrible post player otherwise.  A knee injury sustained during that freshman season eliminated my chances from playing further (and honestly, the varsity girls’ coach was a jerk, so it worked out).
While still at Bishop Hogan, I joined both the Girl Scouts and 4-H, where I met Matt for the first time.  My stint with 4-H lasted about 4 years, but that’s where I got my basics on cooking, ceramics and sewing.  I was a Girl Scout for much longer, 11 years total, and I managed to stay with the same troop the entire time.
Once in high school, I joined the tennis team without having every really played before.  Dad, who is one heck of a player, even with a wooden racket, encouraged this athletic adventure.  I managed to letter as a junior without being terribly good, but quit before my senior season to focus on other activities, mainly fundraising for my show choir’s trip to New York to perform at Carnegie Hall following graduation.  I had been a singer all through elementary and middle school because vocal music was a required class at Bishop Hogan (they didn’t have band until later), so I carried that through high school and got to do the Carnegie Hall thing at the end of it all.  Dad accompanied us on that trip and could tell you all kinds of stories (particularly, how he got our group of 31 un-lost on the NYC subways).
Upon graduation from CHS, I enrolled at the University of Kansas.  I chose KU after a very scary visit to the University of Missouri.  Mom and Dad went with me for the Honors Visit Day, but we wound up going through a couple of “shady” neighborhoods on our way into campus.  I told my dad that he could not leave me in a place like this and since I was determined to go to a D-1 school for pre-med, KU landed next on the list.  I had been brought up a Mizzou fan, so the thought of me going to KU was pretty out there for both my family and my friends.  When I received my acceptance letter, all my black and gold stuff turned to crimson and blue and that was the end of my allegiance to Mizzou.  While at KU, I majored in a few different sciences before deciding on Biology with an emphasis in Genetics, which was workable for a pre-med student like myself.  However, I enjoyed college just a little too much and never made the leap to medical school.  After graduation in 2000, I remained in Lawrence and began working full-time for KU’s Continuing Education department as a project assistant.  My unit did conferences, short courses, and symposia for clients within and outside of the KU community.  After working there a while, I realized I absolutely loved planning projects like those events, so I began to work my way up to Program Manager.  (Little did I know how much that experience would help me with the planning of this wedding!)  The biggest obstacle for me at the time was the fact that I didn’t have a Master’s degree and since all the other Program Managers had one, I needed one to be promoted.  So, I enrolled in the MS in Management program through Baker University, from which I graduated in 2005.  My Baker experience was far different from my KU experience in that I learned so much more from my peers this time around.  I got my promotion with Continuing Education, but ended up leaving for a completely new experience with the Kansas Institute for Positive Behavior Support at the KU LifeSpan Institute in the summer of 2006.  I am still with KIPBS and serving in the capacity of budget/grant manager/event coordinator/office manager.  I wear many hats for them, but am thrilled to be part of a project that truly benefits others. 
In my spare time (besides planning this wedding, of course), I enjoy hanging out with friends (playing Pitch and board and video games) reading, cross-stitch, photography, fantasy football and baseball, and catching just about any sport on TV, though I really love watching the Jayhawks and the St. Louis Blues.  I’m also a huge fan of live music, though I don’t take as much advantage of Lawrence’s fantastic music scene, as I probably should.  Flee the Seen is my favorite Kansas City-area band, thanks to Scott Ware (who introduced me to them).  Michael turned me on to the Round Barn Blues Fest, held twice a year in Kirksville, Missouri.  It’s a four-hour road trip from Lawrence, but all three that I’ve made it to have been worth it. 
Matt has influenced my activities as well.  I’m kind of a NASCAR fan, though that mainly stems from watching the old CART open-wheel series with Dad and rooting on Roberto Guererro because he drove the True Value car (and my parents owned a True Value hardware store at the time).  I’m also very excited about the merging of the Indy Racing League and the Champ Car Series.  Additionally, I have been known to participate in a car audio competition or two (via USACi and dB Drag Racing), but currently I’m sidelined until we can get my Porsche running again.  During USACi World Finals in Kansas City in 2004, a reporter from the Pitch Weekly followed Matt and I around to get the full competitor experience (the whole article is about people we know, but our story is under Rule #4).  And most recently, I’ve learned how to manage a website.  Matt created the template and made the Google Maps work, but the rest of this site has been my mini-labor of love.  I hope you have enjoyed the site as well as my story and I look forward to seeing you on May 25!