K.M. was a favorite of everyone here

The Wakulla News and our small band of news-folks lost a member of our family last week when Karen M. Tully succumbed to cancer after a long and valiant battle that continued for several years.

Staff

Karen M, Tulley

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K.M., as reporter Bill Snowden and I called her, was a holdover from the days of the Wakulla Publishing Company ownership prior to the Phillips family selling the newspaper to Landmark in 2006.

Karen worked for the newspaper for several years under the Phillips ownership until she left the paper to do other things.

Karen worked as a graphic artist creating our ads until she left. After she became sick, Karen returned to help us do some copy editing and the very important job of proofreading. It was her efforts while she was sick that made us all look good by catching the aggravating typo that was missed in the early production stages.

K.M. was good at what she did and continued to impress me with her desire to continue working here even as it became evident that it was a struggle to come into the office on some days.

We have many wonderful memories of Karen’s life experiences and stories about her visits to Las Vegas to visit her brother, Joe and family. On her last trip to Nevada, she brought each newspaper employee back dice with a different hotel name on each. It was her way of sharing an experience that she cherished.

She loved her animals, Wakulla County and the many people we come in contact with each day. We loved her smile, laugh and ever-present good attitude even when it seemed like life and work was crummy.

She never complained about her circumstances as she brought an oxygen container to work from time-to-time.

Life moves forward and the only constant we have is that there will always be more news to cover and another newspaper to put out.

We are grateful for the small things in life such as K.M. coming to help us when she could have stayed home instead.

I think she got her smile and warm attitude from her late father, Charles, who used to visit us in our old office. He would always come to see us with a huge smile and something funny to say. He was obviously proud of her and she was proud of him.

Thanks for spending your last months with us, K.M. We miss you already.

Keith Blackmar is Editor

of The Wakulla News