My life started out in the small town of Pawling, New York where I was born to Miriam and Kurt Kolt. I am the oldest sibling, to be followed almost three years later by a brother, Tony. Since I don't remember much of the first few years of my life, there are not many stories I can tell from living in New York when I was small. One of the only stories I remember is when my mom threatened me to clean when I was 3 of 4 years old. She said that if I did not pick up all of my toys off the floor, she would throw them away. I, of course, did not pick up my toys and she did throw them away. Unfortunately, her cleaning gene was not passed on to me.
I attended two years of preschool at the Sunshine School, which I only vaguely remember from photographs. Apparently I made quite a few friends and, at this point in my life, was cute as a button with white-blonde banana curls and the cutest face you'd ever want to see. I was a happy little kid.
We moved from Pawling to Overland Park, Kansas when I was almost 5 years old. My dad's job got relocated to just outside Kansas City, Kansas and we packed up all of our things and moved. This was the first time my parents had not lived back East and that was hard for them, but it ended up being an amazing place to grow up. I attended preschool at Mrs. Andrews preschool (where I later took years and years of swimming lessons and developed my mad swimming skills).
I later attended Stanley Elementary at the age of 6. Years passed and time crawled by (as it seems to do for children) and I finished my tenure at Stanley, a good student who finished all of her classes with good grades and few problems at school. I was usually on honor roll. I played the violin in third and fourth grades. I won a writing award in first grade and have loved writing ever since, deciding then and there my talents and interests lie in that field. My mom says now that I was a bit of a pest in fourth grade, but other than that and a broken arm in third grade, elementary school was not very noteworthy.
I went to Blue Valley Middle School for the first 3/4 of 6th grade and the only real developments I had in middle school were a love for music and being on stage (I was in the school rendition of The Hobbit, I sang, and I started taking guitar lessons) and I had a really bad hair cut. Seriously, I looked like I had a bowl on my head, in a similar style to how many young boys cut their hair. So, with my lack of a womanly figure and a boyish hair cut, I was often mistaken for a twin brother with Tony, which disturbed me a lot. This did not get me ready for the next stage in my life.
Dad came home again and said the company was moving, so we packed up and moved to Palm City, Florida. I wasn't too upset at the time. I got two spring breaks and I figured that I would be the "new kid" at school and everyone would love me. Not so. Florida was a very difficult place to spend the tween and teen years. Mind you, there are some wonderful, great people who live there for whom I will always hold a very special place in my heart, but I spent the first three years I lived there crying every single day with how horrible the other kids were. The naive girl who grew up in a neighborhood where everyone sat in our front yard, drinking and listening to country music with the front door always open moved to a town where Calvin Klein was the only respectable brand of clothing, and if you were not wearing a name brand, you were not spoken to. I tried my best to fit in, as kids do, but it was to no avail. I spent the majority of my time searching for friends, but never really finding people who were truly good people. In my entire tenure in Florida, there is only one girl who was a true friend. I attended Hidden Oaks Middle School -- where the only good thing I took from my time there was singing in the school choir and taking Spanish classes my last year, which started my interest in languages. I enjoyed singing and I won an award my 8th grade year from my teacher, which, at the time, was more prestigious than it sounds. Also in middle school, I joined the school paper and was a member of the Silver Bulletin staff the entirety of my stay there. This really sparked my interest in newspapers specifically.
Middle School came and went with lots of difficult times and few true friends. Just when I thought I fit in, the girls would be horrible again and I would have to restart my journey. But finally I started high school at South Fork High. Because I had done so well in middle school, I decided to join the International Baccalaureate program which was housed at the backwoods hole of South Fork High. There is no other way to describe it, as it truly is a vile place. However, I was a Bulldog there for three long years and took as many International Baccalaureate classes and tests as I could, and also some Advanced Placement tests as well. I tried to set myself up well for college. While I was there, two fields of study interested me -- journalism and computer science. While I was not much of a programmer, I enjoyed it so much and it quickly turned into my favorite class. I was a member of the South Fork paper my sophomore year, as I was too young my first year and could not take it my junior year due to the IB curriculum. I left Florida with a great knowledge of Spanish, a love of Ricky Martin (and two concerts!), one good friend my age (PT, gracias) and a hatred for the state.
The best thing about Florida was getting a dog -- Pepper, who is still the ruler of the family and the best pet in the whole world. I love that dog. Some other fun things did happen during Florida, especially getting to see extended family, spending time in the water, a trip to the Bahamas, and meeting some family friends. It was difficult, though, with kids my age.
My dad decided that it was time for him to move on, so we started anew in Sparks, Nevada. We moved to just outside of Reno over the summer just before my senior year. I was excited to leave Florida, but was terrified of starting over again. Thankfully, the people in Nevada were much nicer and I easily made some acquaintances and friends. I was now on an AP schedule and joined my school newspaper, the Raiders' Digest. Being a senior was okay, not as much fun as it was cracked up to be, but I did have a better time overall than I would have had in Florida. I applied to three schools my senior year and visited them all: KU, Mizzou and UNR. I had also considered NYU but with the events of 9.11.01 still weighing on everyone's mind, decided not to go there. The year came and went. I went to my senior prom, alone, and came home early and hung out with my brother and our friend. I took AP tests at the end of the year and when all was done, I had 19 AP credits and 6 IB credits to my name. I made the decision to stay in town and go to the University of Nevada, Reno after talking to the advisor of the J School.
For my graduation, I was given a trip to Europe by my grandmother. She and I went, and I had one of the best experiences of my life. We went to London, Paris, Lucerne, Venice, Florence, Pisa and Rome on our trip. I would say this event was the largest growing period in my life, for many reasons. It taught me a lot about myself and gave me a better understanding of the world. I loved my entire trip and still think fondly of the memories I made today.
I started at the University of Nevada, Reno in Aug. 2002 and lived in the dorms in Nye Hall my first semester. It was a hard semester, getting used to this transition, but at the same time I loved it. I hated my room and roommate, so I moved across the street to another dorm my next semester to have a room to myself. The room was nicer but the dorm life was not for me. So, after this year, I packed up my things for the 5th time in about 9 months and finally moved into an apartment, where I lived for the rest of college.
My parents moved again, this time to Frisco, Texas -- right outside Dallas. During that summer, I got my first real job as an intern at the Sparks Tribune. I was a reporter there for the entire summer, loved it, and stayed for two years as a stringer. It was not always glamorous, but it gave me many good clips and I've met many great people. I look back very fondly on this job, and it was a great break into the newspaper business.
During the summer of 2004, I was again given the opportunity by my grandmother to go abroad, this time for longer and to study. I lived in Torino, Italy for more than two months and learned Italian. I met some amazing, wonderful people while I was there and again made memories that will last a lifetime. It's an experience that I can't even begin to describe due to its length and the vast array of things I was able to see and do, but it again was life changing. I fell so in love with Italy that I would like to live there some day.
Personally, college was a big growing time. I had my own place and was able to come and go as I pleased. I was a good student, but had a lot of fun, too. I met some great people in Reno who I hold dear. I graduated in seven semesters, so, looking back, it was very fast. I would not want to go back and do it again now, but there were some great times and I took some excellent classes.
I graduated in December 2005 cum laude with a major in Journalism and minor in Italian studies. I completed a senior thesis my last semester on the biases of print journalism. During the last half of 2005, I worked at the University as an assistant to the webmaster. It was a great job with an awesome team of people. I learned a lot about web programming & design and had a great time.
After college, I moved directly out to Knoxville, Tennessee. Shortly after, I started a job at the Knoxville News Sentinel as an online producer. In that job I get to combine two of my favorite areas -- journalism and Web development -- plus get to work with a variety of media, people and assignments.
I met Darryl Hall while in Reno and moved to Knoxville to be with him. He proposed marriage in June 2006 and we are planning a July 7, 2007 wedding. For more on that, please visit our wedding Web site. That project has been quite an undertaking, as weddings are, but we are really looking forward to getting married and spending time with family and friends.