“My friend from Greenville found it,” she said of the job advertisement. “She said, ‘You would be perfect’ and I said, ‘You know I would be perfect for this.’ I applied, and here I am.”
The path from Greenville to Troy was anything but straight for Loy.
She studied public relations with a minor in linguistics at the Ohio State University with a focus on working in the holiday/travel industry. She interned with Contiki Holidays, where she traveled to Europe, Australia and Mexico. “That was fantastic. I thought that was what I wanted to do,” she recalled.
She then tutored student athletes at OSU, a role that left her torn by graduation between working in public relations or working in education.
Her answer was to work during the year between undergraduate and graduate school part time in a public relations agency and part time in a student athlete center. She also spent a summer teaching English in Italy.
At graduate school at the University of California at Berkeley, she received a master’s degree in education focusing on athletes in academic achievement in higher education.
Her next stop was the University of Alabama in Birmingham where she worked in the student athlete support services office for a year.
When a nephew was born in Ohio, she returned to the state, taking a job at Wright State University working with student services in nursing for more than six years.
“I didn’t want to be the aunt far away from the nephew,” she said.
The move to the Troy job came in the fall. She lives in Xenia but would like to relocate with fiance Jay Clementz to the Troy area.
Loy said her first days in downtown Troy included visits with Dee Mahan, Main Street’s volunteer coordinator, with businesses downtown. The city also has been “incredibly helpful,” she said.
“With Troy, you just feel like you want to be here. The town is strong and has a high sense of community. That has made this position so much more fun because everybody wants to be involved,” Loy said.
She kept busy with Main Street activities for the fall/holiday season including the Grand Illumination the day after Thanksgiving.
She also was immersed into the Troy downtown-riverfront development study conducted by consultants from MKSK and paid for by several organizations, including Main Street.
Contact this contributing writer at nancykburr@aol.com.
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Online: For more information about Troy Main Street, visit its website at www.troymainstreet.org.
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