Karen Palmer:  

I am Karen Elizabeth Palmer, and I was graduated from Midland High School in 1960. After that I attended and was graduated from Austin College where I studied chemistry and history, if you will pardon the odd combination. After college, I was married and later divorced. I moved to Las Vegas, Nevada in 1966 where my parents lived, and my father worked as an engineer at the Nevada Test Site. Eventually they moved away, but I stayed having remarried. I was a Financial Aid Counselor at UNLV, and prior to that, worked at the Unlv switchboard while pursuing my MA. Never got the MA, but this started my career with the State of Nevada. After my UNLV experience I accepted a position as an Eligibility Certification Specialist with the State of Nevada's Welfare Division, was promoted to Supervisor, and later to a District Office Manager in the Henderson office. After a number of years administering all the Division's programs for that office that included the benefit programs ( welfare and Food Stamps) and the social service programs including adoptions, foster home licensing, protective services for children and adults, and Medicaid, I was promoted to Social Welfare Manager at a much larger district in Las Vegas. I retired in 1997. Since then, I have had a number of "keep busy" jobs, but no new career plans. I love not having hitch myself to a wagon every day, not carrying a cell phone, and living as a retired person. It's great, and i was fortunate to be able to reti...Expand for more