Beth Podel:
CLASS OF 1995
Moon Valley High SchoolClass of 1995
Phoenix, AZ
St. Jerome SchoolClass of 1990
Phoenix, AZ
Beth's Story
My Winding Road (Still Wearing Black)
After high school, I skipped the dorms and dining halls and went straight to retail — one of my earliest wins was becoming an assistant manager at Hot Topic for a whopping $800 a month. From there, I moved into admin work, then call centers, and by the time I was 22, I realized I needed more than just a paycheck. I enrolled at the University of Phoenix when it still had a physical campus and started down the IT path... but after 2 ½ years, life got in the way.
I went back to the admin grind for a while, but the itch to finish what I started never left. At 32, I went back — this time switching majors to marketing. Night school while working full time wasn’t easy, but I earned my bachelor’s, then kept going. I got my master’s degre...Expand for more
e from Northern Arizona University at 36.
I spent the next decade in marketing, until a layoff nudged me into a new chapter. I took a role as an Account Executive at Yelp, and not long after, I became disabled. These days, I work part time in Supported Education and Small Business Consulting for a State contractor — helping others navigate systems I once had to fight my way through myself.
I’ve been a freelance editor since high school, and somewhere in there, I even served as editor for a small press in the horror genre. I’m divorced after 17 years of marriage, child-free by choice, still goth to the core. I paint. I write. I take strange, quiet photos of the desert. My road wasn’t straight, but it’s always been mine — and I’m still walking it in boots and eyeliner.
Register for Free to view all details!
Yearbooks
Reunions
Photos
