Stacy Graham-Hunt, SCSU JRN ’06, runs her own public relations business. She has previously worked for other public relations companies, including The Narrative Project featured in this video, and as a news reporter and columnist. In 2016, she published a memoir, “Processing Pain.”
What was the transition from student to career like for you?
Right after I graduated from Southern, I wrote a few freelance stories for Elm City Newspapers. So, I wrote a couple for the North Haven Weekly. And then I was interested in reporting full time, so I got an internship at the Record Journal in Meriden and I worked as a multimedia reporter slash intern, and then eventually, they hired me as a full-time reporter. So, I wrote there for about a year, and then I started working for the News Times as a multimedia reporter again. And then my editor there let me take a stab at writing a column. And I just loved it.
I wrote about diversity. That was my beat at the time. And I just loved it. I loved writing about my personal experiences. I liked writing about people, underrepresented people, in the newsroom. I was one of two black reporters in the newsroom. And so, I felt like I had, I could cover the stories in a different way about other black people and about other people of color. So that was really exciting to me. And that was something I held on to.
What was the process of transitioning to public relations and eventually setting up your own consulting firm?
I knew someone who worked for a consulting agency, they did a lot of environmental planning and transportation planning, but they were also looking for a public relations person that could kind of translate what the Department of Transportation was doing on highway projects to the general public.
So [consulting] just kind of happened through freelance work. People would ask me, ‘Can you write a press release for me?’ Or, ‘Do you know how to build a website?’ So, it was taking small projects for people. And then they would see something that I did for someone else, and then they asked me.
How did Southern help prepare you for your career today?
At Southern, I really learned how to write a good article. Frank Harris, he really helped me with that ‘Mighty Red Pen.’ And he was very hard on us. I felt like in his class he took us so seriously that it made me take myself much more seriously. And the teachers, as I progress through the program, they were really serious about us writing for the Southern News, they were serious about us getting internships. I feel like they were really engaged with me, and I didn’t have that at other schools.