Colleen has been a freelance artist longer than she’s been a journalist but her inner child who read every word on cereal boxes and went on to devour school libraries and tap out stories on her old underwood portable was not completely happy until she became a VISTA outreach worker for Community Action Southwest in 1990. Her job – find out from those who live here what they need so that social services can help fill the gaps.
“I went in to the Greene County Messenger and told Jim Moore I’d write for free about what was going on in the community and shazam! I was a journalist!”
Soon she was filing stories about rural living with the Observer-Reporter, the Post-Gazette and the GreeneSaver (now GreeneScene).
Colleen has been out and about in rural West Greene since 1972. It was neighbors who helped her patch fences and haul hay and it would be neighbors who told her the stories of their greats and great-greats and what it was like back in the day.
She and neighbor Wendy Saul began the Greene Country Calendar in 1979, a labor of love that is ongoing.
You guessed it – she loves this place!