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  • Julie Akins for Ashland Mayor
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HER STORY

JULIE'S JOURNEY
  • Childhood

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    Julie grew up with modest means in a family of five children on a small organic farm in the shadow of Mount Rainier on the ancestral lands of the Puyallup people. Her father was a disabled firefighter having been injured in the line of duty. Her younger sister, Mary Ruth, suffered from profound autism. Watching her mother work hard to access education for her sister and seeing her father struggle with chronic pain grew in Julie a deep compassion and interest in fixing systems which disadvantage others.
  • A journalist is born

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    By the time she was eight Julie was already licking envelopes for political candidates who promoted equal opportunities for all at her parents kitchen table. And her life long interest in journalism blossomed as she created "The15th Avenue Press", a weekly newspaper which she wrote and copied by hand selling it door to door. Her regular subscribers particularly liked her commentary.
  • TV Mom

    TV Mom

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    By the time she was in her early 30ths Julie was a media professional leading television newsrooms around the nation as an investigative reporter and eventually a news executive. She was one of the first women in the United States to secure a spot as an affiliated female news director.
  • TV Mom

    KOBI Newsroom

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    Having raised her children to adulthood in San Francisco, California where she was a reporter at KRON 4, Julie moved back to the Pacific Northwest to manage the NBC Newsroom, KOBI in Medford for five years before taking time out to study Zen Buddhism under Roshi Joan Halifax.
  • TV Mom

    SOU Professor

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    Returning to Ashland as an adjunct professor of Journalism at SOU and a reporter for the Medford Mail Tribune and Ashland Tidings, she worked the “city beat” covering Ashland City Council.
  • TV Mom

    Homeless Advocacy

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    Julie began reporting on the staggering rate of growth in the homeless population for local and national publications five years ago. She toured homeless camps where she embedded from Seattle to the Mexican border to better understand the situation. There she saw a deep need to house children and families in particular so she began her non profit work of building tiny homes on wheels. She's built two homes and facilitated the housing of numerous families. Here she is in the green room for the Kelly Clarkson show promoting the need for a fair economy which offers living wages and affordable housing. Julie is considered a subject matter expert on homelessness, poverty and marginalized populations on the west coast and is a frequent lecturer and writer on the issue.
  • TV Mom

    City Council

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    Julie won her first term as an Ashland City Councilor in 2018, running against an incumbent.
  • TV Mom

    Running for Mayor

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    Now she is asking you to vote for her as your new mayor in a time when vision, courage and inspirational leadership is needed more than ever.

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