After I graduated from Hanford, I attended University of Puget Sound, where I met my future husband, Mark Turner, and graduated from there in 1983. I then managed a Rax restaurant for 3 years, which convinced me I did NOT want to do that for the rest of my life, so I applied to graduate school. I ended up attending University of Wisconsin-Madison in Communication and graduated with my PhD in 1991. I taught at the University of Washington in Seattle until 1997 when I moved to Springfield MO and began teaching at Missouri State University (then Southwest Missouri State University). I am currently Interim Department Head in the Department of Communication at Missouri State University.

On the personal front, Mark and I have been married 26 years. We have one son, John, who is 17. We homeschool him, which is quite challenging and fun. This year he is studying for the GED and doing a Career exploration course just to find out what careers are out there to see what he might be interested in. John has a girlfriend named Katherine. They have been together just over 1 year. We like her very much.