Back home again, in my ideal job
When I was in college, I had to write my vision of where I saw myself in 10 years.
“Imagine your path leads to your ideal job,” the assignment prompted me. “What is your destination?”
The destination I laid out is, miraculously, the one where I now find myself: writing for my hometown paper and covering my hometown.
I am beyond excited to introduce myself as the new western communities reporter for The Palm Beach Post. I came to The Post — and back to Palm Beach County — nearly two years ago after working for a few years at Treasure Coast Newspapers in Stuart.
I grew up just south of where the Mall at Wellington Green now sits — except I remember it as farmland with a shooting range behind it. I went to Wellington Landings Middle School and graduated from Wellington High. My first job was as an ice cream slinger at the Cold Stone Creamery next to Wellington Green. And yes: I sang for my tips.
I live in Wellington now with my husband, Peter Bowen. Pete also grew up in Wellington, moving here with his family from Iowa in Kristina Webb the mid-1980s. He’s an assistant manager at our Barnes & Noble — I say “our” because even though he was only a year ahead of me in school, we didn’t meet until my sister and he worked together at that store in 2005.
This year I wrote a story about Peter finding a “time capsule” under an older fixture in the store. Inside were CDs and movies that were put there before the store opened almost 15 years to the day that he found them.
In writing that story, I realized how deep my roots are in the western communities of Palm Beach County.
I saw it even more as I covered Hurricane Irma’s effects on our area. I went up and down streets where I learned how to drive — including the dirt road out in The Acreage where my poor little Dodge pickup got stuck in a rut while trying to take gas to a friend’s house after Hurricane Jeanne. I interviewed people who, I later discovered, had worked with my father, Ken Webb, who as a general contractor helped construct the Wellington Reserve buildings and several other projects in the western communities.
And I realized just how much I love this area. I hope to bring that passion to my new position, reporting on the issues that matter to you, my neighbors and friends, while holding our officials accountable.