Funny how when your attention turns to something, you see it everywhere.  Such is the case for Liberal and me.  I’m heading there to emcee the Pancake Day Talent Show this week, and launch a friends Vault Denim Business,(Ronda Maxwell) so sure enough when something or should I say someone catches my eye at a volleyball tourney recently should I have been surprised SHE was from LIBERAL??

Typically it’s the tallest girl on the court that gets the attention in volleyball, because Hey, they are tall….and that’s an asset in the game.  At the 12 year old club volleyball tournament  at Newman recently I watched my own daughter, of course, but when she wasn’t playing I couldn’t take my eye off Khiley Davis.  The 11 -year-old from Liberal Kansas is a dynamo, and while I don’t know much about sports, I guarantee Liberal’s Libero is being homegrown before our very eyes.

I couldn’t believe the way this four-foot-four-inch fifth grader served the ball.  She rarely misses, and then when she’s on the front row, she goes for every ball that comes her way.  When I asked her coach about her, he said, the only thing with her is sometimes he has to settle  her down, check out the video, and you’ll see what he means.

As for whether she’s a natural born libero, Khiley says she got so good because she practices, a lot.  Well her dad better keep it up, because she’s proving to the rest of us size alone has nothing to do with being good at a sport.   Good luck Khiley, I’ll be watching.

Maize South High lost a brilliant teacher, coach, and friend last weekend to breast cancer.  Shelley Poynter probably has no idea how much she touched my life, though our paths crossed MANY times.   Growing up in 4-H Shelley Woodard, from Maize showed sheep and Anita Steckline, from Garden Plain showed cattle at the Sedgwick County Fair in Cheney for years.  I admired her from afar, how calm, cool and collected she was in the show ring, and I wanted to be like her.

Years later as a reporter covering Wichita’s Komen Race for the Cure for KSN-TV, I saw that old friend in a pink shirt, and asked to interview her.  I doubted that she remembered me, but she did, and she was willing to share her story with my viewers and me, so that we could learn more about her battle with breast cancer….in hopes we wouldn’t have to endure it ourselves.

Fast forward a few years later and turns out I’m seeing her everywhere because she teaches in my children’s school district.    It took me awhile to put together that she had also married A.C. Poynter who had gone to High School with my husband, and who teaches at my kids middle school and in fact, had me come speak to his broadcasting class.

Then this year, I became an even bigger fan when I fell in love with Maize South High’s Volleyball team.  I was there mostly because the head coach, Teri Larson and I have been friends for decades…….and low and behold, her assistant was none other than Shelley Poynter.  I watched again from afar as she battled the cancer that had returned, and I still wanted to be like her…..  Strong, present  and always available to the kids who came into her life.   I became fans of her daughter, McKenna, a junior at Maize South who is an exceptional athlete…..Kent and I looked forward to teasing A.C. at all the games,  and Shelley became OUR daughter’s PE teacher this last semester.  They were our friends, even if it was from afar.   And now, with Shelley’s death I grieve, not so much from afar as I probably should, but right up with the rest of you because while I may not have been on her A-list of close friends, I was on her A-list of admirers.  Shelley Poynter, Thank YOU, for sharing your life with me even when you didn’t realize I was watching.  You mattered to me.

(That’s Shelley in the back row with her ball cap on following the win over rivals Maize High School)

I know I went to college for Broadcasting but if I were to go back today, NO MATTER what I really wanted to do. I would get a degree in Computers. Starting my own businesses since leaving TV, you can’t just start a business without knowing, Facebook, Twitter, WordPress, Website Design, Excel, PowerPoint…..It feels like even in my newest venture, Vault Denim, I need a COMPUTER DEGREE.
My latest project was setting up my new Vault Jeans website just unveiled at convention….check it out.    Actually I had do TWO of them because Facebook screws you with FRIEND limits.  Please Like if you can. They are pretty good, but if I was really good at this,they would be even better.  Yes I can shoot, and edit video, but my education and life experience has left me weaker on computer skills than I would like.  Anyone want to join me for classes?? Anyone??    Then again, maybe I will just self teach, it’s gotten me this far so far. Luckily, I have some great friends willing to share.   So here’s some love to the people who saved me recently.  Remember it’s who you know, now you can know them too.   Thank you.  Cody Heitschmidt, Davis Sickmon, Angie Rowan, Laura Tutt, and Tiffany Hausdorf.  Oh and since I haven’t had time to write, read what my Vault Denim peer  Kimberly Dodson  had to say about convention, basically she said everything I wanted to say….and I didn’t have to write it.  SHARING really is the best concept.

Oh Yeah…NEW Jeans came in today….. TONIGHT, Feb 2nd 7-9 at my house is your first chance to see them.  Email me for address.  

Yep, that’s someone else’s tag line, and I quit caring enough when greeting cards started costing like $5 bucks a piece! So I gave up Christmas Cards this year, I don’t include birthday cards, or actually, any cards on the gifts I give…..but some times you NEED a card. So I decided to personalize a Thank You recently and I did it on Shutterfly. Made my own card, had them address and mail it for me, for $3.67. Now that my friends is priceless. Want to check it out?

5×7 Folded Card

View the entire collection of cards.

I’d like to say I had been looking for a home-based business opportunity for years, but that would be a big fat hairy lie.  I actually became a Vault Denim Fashion Consultant (I love that title) because I needed new jeans, my daughters needed new jeans, and my Miss Me’s are now missing THREE blingies, only one of which I found on my closet room floor. I thought buying designer denim at discount prices made a lot of sense, I just didn’t know where you could do that.  Imagine my surprise  when  a friend of mine, (Thanks Melva) took me into  her bedroom and whispered, “Look at this.”

Okay, if you were thinking anything besides a pair of jeans, shame on you!!  She pulled out a pair of jeans she bought at a Vault Denim party for 60 bucks and I said, dang, they look like the pair I bought for more than $100.  I was hooked.  I looked up the company online and decided I’d go to the party Melva was having and if I bought a pair, I might even THINK about selling them.  After all, I have a little time on my hands and two teen or almost teenage daughters who will be requiring me to BUY jeans for them for a long long time.

I signed up two days after I got those jeans home, and have since bought myself four more pairs.  I’m HOOKED.  Typically Vault Denim is sold at home parties, like Tupperware, or Silpada or Cookie Lee.  Pretty soon, I’m going to quit buying and start selling them.  Actually I have started selling them, but my first “party” isn’t until November 3rd.

Today I ran a little test “Sale”…. I snagged part of the inventory and drove around with denim in the trunk of my car.  Yes, I felt like a drug dealer, but watching women try on jeans has to be the funniest job on earth.  Not one woman, size three to size 20 felt good about herself.   Each pointed to her problem area.      I decided right then if I was going to go from “News Lady” to “Jeans Lady” I’d better take an oath of office for this Fashion Consultant position.  I, Anita Cochran, hereby promise not to divulge your “Problem Area” to anyone else and will not acknowledge it except to say, “ARE YOU CRAZY!?”….because ladies until you pointed it out (and typically even after you did) I…..the Jeans Lady, didn’t even notice!!    So come on pretty ladies, if you want to save some money, who can you trust with your tush?   The same one you used to trust for your news (okay, unless you watched the other channels) because until further notice, the News Lady, is now the Jeans Lady. www.vaultdenim/anitacochran

Had Chipotle for lunch and some website said I could add my nutrition label to my website …..thought I’d test her out.  I mean really doesn’t the world need to know what I like in my burrito bowl?

–>

Now that’s Cool

I’m getting ready to speak in New York City about what else, TWITTER, and Facebook and social media.   It’s Jeff Pulver‘s latest venture, and if you turned up or tuned into  the #140 Conf/Small Town in Hutchinson last fall you know how much fun it will be.   It’s all about how the real time web has changed our lives (in small towns in Kansas and ACROSS the GLOBE).   The funny thing is, the reason I’m speaking has left me almost speechless again.

In Kansas, my name was associated with local news for 20 years.  Two years ago, I left the anchor desk and relied on my family, friends and yes, my social media presence to remake my life.  Now, as a somewhat social media “insider” I’m finding that what I experienced in real life as a local “TV Celebrity” is exactly what you need to be aware of here on the web!!  ”What, I’M a BRAND?”

This #140 Conference New York City is all about Branding.  For 20 years I was branded as the face of the TV Station I worked for.  I was paid, to be their face.  It came at a cost, a local  News Anchor represents her station first, her self LAST.   Needless to say, when I no longer had to worry about how someone else wanted my hair to look, or what I could or couldn’t say, I felt FREE.  That freedom was first realized here on the internet.  I wrote about whatever I wanted, I posted pictures that station management might have cringed at, (have you seen my facebook??), and I became a person instead of a company figure-head.  I thought.

Today as I was about to blog about a not so perfect experience with a cruise line staffer, I thought, “Really, is that what I want people who first come to my blog to know about me? That I’m a whiner?”   It turns out that even though I became more real as a person here on the internet,  Anita Cochran became a BRAND in the process.  If you blog, facebook, twitter or even post reviews on the internet YOU are a Brand too.   “What, I’m a Brand?” takes me to New York next week where I’ll share what I’ve learned spending 20 years as someone else’s brand, and spending the last few as my own.  Some is exactly the same, some is NOT.

You can watch the speech live right here……I’m on at 10:50 on June 16th.  Also, check out the other speakers, WOW, how did I make it on that list??  I think it’s either Good Branding….or Unintentional Branding, watch and you can decide for yourself which it really is.

I meant, run your fingers through my hair, and feel my feathers while you’re there!  Yep, I know I’m not 14 but I thought I’d be trendy and add the hottest hair accessory to my golden locks.  FEATHERS.  (Makes me want to make clucking sounds, but I’ve found I’m better at pig noises than bird sounds.)

I noticed some twittering about where to get them in Wichita, and while they are readily available here in town, apparently that still isn’t the norm across the country. Today at Salon Knotty, owner Pam Cutler, attached a little color to my normally butter colored locks and told me Wichita is finally on the cutting edge of hair fashion with all these little extensions.

Salon Knotty has a GREAT selection of unusual feathers and you can put them in any combination of your choosing.  (The cost runs 8 bucks a feather, or five for 37……I have three in mine!)

I was instantly drawn to the lime green one, but I think that one has an age limit, so we chose the blue/purple one to accent my eyes.  Trust me, it gets you noticed, my 10 year old almost flipped because the feather she got a while back fell out two days later.       ( Note from Pam, if that happens the salon will be happy to put it back in – at least Salon Knotty would be).

One advantage to selecting Salon Knotty, those girls know their extensions.  For six years, they’ve been putting long locks on short and thin haired heads all over Wichita.  The feathers use the exact same locking system they use to hook on plain ole hair so they know what they are doing.

What I learned today.  You can wash, curl, straighten these little feathers just like real hair, so the options are endless even if you are stuck with the color for awhile.  I’m thinking Pam picked the right shade for me, of course, I’m so matchy-matchy, I’m probably going to be wearing a lot of blue/purple in the days ahead……go ahead run your fingers through my hair, and admire my feather while you’re there!!

I’m working on a new little project with my friends at Salon Knotty.  First step getting to know the staff……Here they are, as I get to know them, I’ll share details (cause I’ve got a big mouth like that!)  Aren’t they pretty?

When I wonder, “How do I get myself into these things?” the answer almost always comes back to,  ”Well, I just said, YES!” So when you see Cochran & Rogers hosting an estate sale this weekend in East Wichita, look no further than the dorky blonde sitting at the register, when you wonder how we got there!!  A friend said do you guys do that kind of thing, and I, the dorky blonde  who will be at the register said, “YES! Yes we do.”

Actually, my business partner Sally (The Rogers of Cochran & Rogers) and I have thrown lots of garage sales over the years, including one I wrote about here on www.anitacochran.tv so we do have some experience, it’s just that I forgot how much work they are to put on.   Since we’re going to all this trouble anyway, you might as well stop by and say Hi!  W ho knows maybe you’ll find a bargain, and come on we all love to snoop through other people’s stuff!!

The sale is listed on Wichita Craigslist.  It’s this weekend (yes, we know it’s Easter- April 21,22,23) Some of the other pictures of cool stuff I couldn’t fit on there are right here….. If you see anything you have to have, let me know, I’ll put your name on it.

It’s funny, Cochran & Rogers (which specializes in home decor with custom bedding/curtains) uses the mantra, “Putting Your Home Together.”  In this case, we’re also up for “Taking Your Home Apart !!”