Hello everyone from Kathy Hayes…

…actually it’s Schumacher now.

First off, thank you to Amy & Anthony for keeping up the momentum and encouraging us to blog! I really enjoy reading what everyone has been up to since high school, some of you I knew casually so it is nice to learn more about your lives and other are friends I lost touch with over the years (hey McCue, Mark & Heshire!!) so hopefully we can re-connect.

How do I know I am getting old? I am mother to three kids and drive a mini-van (and love it!), I think that automatically classifies me as old. Sometimes I just feel old-fashioned, is anyone else bothered that kids today call adults by their first name? I still call Lisa’s dad Mr. Macias and I am almost 40!

How did I get to be a mini-vanned mom of 3, here is my story……

After graduation I attended The University of San Diego, I loved the school and the whole experience. I got recruited to play Volleyball for them. It is a small school so volleyball didn’t dominate all my time and I was able to enjoy the full San Diego college experience, which funny enough didn’t include a lot of time in the classroom. I majored in Business Finance but during my senior year I took a Broadcasting course for fun and decided it was a career I wanted to pursue.

After graduation, I moved home and patiently mailed out resume reels waiting for some ‘podunk’ station to watch my reel and say we need this ‘big haired girl from the valley’ to work for us. After 6 months of this, my patience (and my parent’s) wore thin and I ended up getting a job at MGM Studios doing something that I didn’t know existed but had a lot of the elements of broadcasting that I really enjoyed. I worked in the broadcast publicity department and produced on-set interviews with a films cast and crew and created ‘making-of’ pieces about a film. Over the years, I worked for various agencies and studios before settling as the VP of Broadcast Video Production for Miramax Films.

Along the way I met my husband, Plowden, who also works in entertainment. The funny thing is we didn’t meet at work but rather a dive bar in Santa Monica on Valentine’s Day 1998 -- great story for the kids. We were married 3 years later and 2 weeks before our first anniversary our daughter Olivia was born. Two years later we welcomed Benjamin and 21 months after him our third (and final) child Harrison was born.

My contract with Miramax was ending around the time that Harrison was born and although I was able to keep a somewhat flexible schedule at Miramax I knew that with three kids I needed to find a job that would be more amenable to my schedule. My husband and I made the decision to open our own Marketing Company. The first few months of starting a business with three young kids was very stressful and a lot of work but over the past year and a half we have been able to move into a larger space and hire more staff, giving me the freedom to work around the kids schedule. Life is hectic and there is little sleep, but it is never boring. (unless you consider hanging out at Chuck E. Cheese during the holiday weekend boring.)

Thanks to Lisa, Carol, Corinne and everyone else working to put the reunion together. I look forward to seeing everyone in October!