Mary Kim Titla Biography | Mary Kim Titla
Mary Kim Titla (born November 24, 1960) is an American publisher, Native American youth advocate, journalist, former TV reporter (notably for KVOA in Tucson, wherein 1987 she became the first Native American television journalist in Arizona, and later KPNX in Phoenix), and was a 2008 candidate for Arizona’s First Congressional District. She is an enrolled member of the San Carlos Apache Tribe.
The Democratic primary for the 1st District seat was held on September 2, 2008. Titla lost to former Arizona state representative and prosecutor Ann Kirkpatrick, who received 47%.
Titla placed second, garnering 33% of the vote. Others in the primary included: Ahwatukee attorney Howard Shanker, who received 14% and former Dennis Kucinich coordinator Jeffrey Brown, who received 6%.
Titla obtained her undergraduate degree from the University of Oklahoma and her master’s degree from the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University.
In November 2006, Titla was inducted into the Cronkite School’s Alumni Hall of Fame. Titla now serves as Executive Director of United National Indian Tribal Youth (UNITY) located in Mesa, Arizona.
Mary Kim Titla Age
Mary Kim Titla is an American publisher, Native American youth advocate, journalist, former TV reporter, and was a 2008 candidate for Arizona’s First Congressional District.
She is an enrolled member of the San Carlos Apache Tribe. The Democratic primary for the 1st District seat was held on September 2, 2008, .she was born on November 24, 1960, in San Carlos, AZ, she is 58 years old as of 2018
Mary Kim Titla Children
Mary Kim Titla is an American publisher, Native American youth advocate, journalist, former TV reporter, and was a 2008 candidate for Arizona’s First Congressional District. His children are Jordan, Micah, and Bear
Mary Kim Titla Husband, Married
Arizona’s First And Only Native TV News Reporter Resigns To Run Native Youth Magazine.com
Posted by System Admin
Fri, 04-Nov-2005 12:56 AM
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
November 3, 2005
Arizona’s Only Native American TV News Reporter Resigns At 12 News To Run Online Magazine For Native Youth
Phoenix, Arizona–Mary Kim Titla, the first and only Native American television news reporter in Arizona, is saying goodbye to TV news so she can concentrate on an online magazine she created for Native American youth.
Titla’s resignation as a general assignment reporter at 12 News in Phoenix comes as a shock to many who’ve watched her blossom from a trainee reporter 18 years ago in Tucson to the polished, well-rounded reporter she is today.
Titla, who has a Master’s degree in Mass Communication, actually began her career 20 years ago in 1985 as a newsroom receptionist at KTVK Channel 3. Within several months she worked her way up to an entry level position in the newsroom.
Her big on-air break came in September 1987 when the late Pope John Paul II visited with 10,000 Native Americans at the Coliseum in Phoenix. Titla knew many of the Native American leaders involved in the event and was asked to provide commentary during a live broadcast.
She used the tape to land her first job as a trainee reporter in Tucson at KVOA TV. She joined the 12 News team in 1993.
Titla has received numerous awards for her reporting, including being a finalist for a Rocky Mountain Emmy. She has won first place awards from the Associated Press, Arizona Press Club, and the Native American Journalists Association. In addition, she has been recognized by Outstanding Young Women of America and the YWCA.
She currently serves as Chairperson of the Board of Trustees for United National Indian Tribal Youth, Inc., an organization that promotes youth leadership and good citizenship. In 2002, Mary Kim received the Ira Hayes Honorable Warrior award for her work with Native American youth.
Titla, a member of the San Carlos Apache Tribe, launched NativeYouthMagazine.com (NYM) on July 1, 2005. Her three sons Bear, 10, Micah, 15 and Jordan,19, served as her consultants. She also relied on nephews, nieces and other young Native people to give their input about what they wanted to see on the website.
Since then NYM has conducted surveys to find out what Native youth want to read about most. The first two months the website averaged 1 million hits. In September and October, the website grew tremendously averaging 1.7 million hits which makes NativeYouthMagazine. Read also about Andrew Revkin
com one of the most visited Native American websites in the country. Titla was torn between staying with 12 News or taking NativeYouthMagazine.com to the next level.
“If I stayed at 12 News I would’ve been given the opportunity to anchor weekend mornings which I’ve always wanted to do but I created an online magazine that could go to print next year and become something really special.
I’ve enjoyed being a TV News journalist but I believe my calling is now about molding young Native storytellers and through the magazine I can help showcase their talents and lifestyles,” said Titla.
Her colleagues at 12 News have mixed feelings. News Director Mark Casey is hoping the veteran reporter will still make guest appearances on their news shows. “Mary Kim represents all that is positive about our business. She is a superb storyteller. She is a calm and strong force in challenging situations.
Whether it’s a negative or positive story, she is respectful and empathetic to the subjects of the piece. While we are very sorry to lose Mary Kim from daily journalism, we are very pleased that she’s working on the subject that is closest to her heart: Native Youth.
I have no doubt she will be immensely successful with NativeYouthMagazine.com and all the projects she is taking on. We believe and expect that Mary Kim will always be a part of 12 News. ” Casey said.
Titla has had quite a career. While at KVOA in Tucson she was given the opportunity to do a sit-down interview with then First Lady of Arkansas Hillary Rodham Clinton who was campaigning for her husband and presidential candidate Bill Clinton.
Other highlights include interviewing the legendary entertainer and comedian Bob Hope, following the Chandler National Little League team to the Little League World Series and doing a four-part series on Native American medicine people that earned her an Emmy nomination.
“I hope, as the only Native American at newsroom editorial meetings, I was able to raise awareness about issues considered important to Indian people. Ignorance still exists.
It’s important for Native people to work in mainstream media so they can help educate their non-Indian peers and serve as a voice for a segment of our population that is often overlooked,” Titla said.
She doesn’t plan to disappear from TV completely. “TV is in my blood. The door is wide open for me to do other TV projects but right now NativeYouthMagazine.com is my top priority,” Titla adds.
Titla is currently mentoring four young Native Americans who are serving as regular correspondents for the website. “The website isn’t just for Native youth.
It’s for anyone who cares about Native youth. I hope tribal leaders, parents, educators, and others will use NativeYouthMagazine.com as a resource and visit the site often.
I’ve personally benefited by what I‘ve read on the website,” said Titla. NYM’s operating budget will rely on ad sales and an online store is scheduled to open soon.
Titla also plans to serve as a consultant for Native youth initiatives. She also hopes to do more public speaking as a professional motivational speaker. Titla’s last day at 12 News is December 8. Her husband name is John Mosley
For more information, call John Mosley at (602) 339-1387 or you can contact Mary Kim Titla via email at mtitla@kpnx.com.
ASU alum Mary Kim Titla empowers Native youth after groundbreaking news career
The woman who broke barriers as Arizona’s first Native American TV news reporter has recently guided the nation’s foremost Indian youth empowerment group to new students, communities, and sources of income. It’s a testament to the perseverance Mary Kim Titla learned at home.
Born prematurely to a pair of young parents on the San Carlos Apache Reservation in central Arizona, Titla said she was nearly given up for adoption. Her father, however, couldn’t go through with it.
He “put his hand in the incubator, and I grabbed his pinkie,” said Titla, now 55. “He felt like that was a sign and that he and my mother needed to do something to reverse the adoption.”
Titla said that her parents refused to give in to difficult circumstances. Instead, she said, they went on to get married, raise four other children and earn degrees.
“It’s never too late to go to college,” she said. “It’s never too late to accomplish your dreams.”
Titla’s career has spanned broadcast journalism, a run for Congress, a stint as a kindergarten teacher and now a three-year stretch as executive director of United National Indian Tribal Youth (UNITY), the largest and oldest such organization in the U.S.
She said all of her experiences have helped her excel in this latest role, which focuses on doing what she has always wanted — giving back to her community.
“There’s a saying in Indian Country, ‘The honor of one is the honor of all,’’’ Titla said. “So when a Native person is honored, it brings honor to us all. We help young people pursue their dreams, and there is no greater honor than that.”
Breaking into news
Her career began three decades ago at KTVK, 3TV in Phoenix. She recalled walking into her boss’s office and telling him, “I’m going to be a very good newsroom receptionist, but that’s not the reason why I’m here. I’m here to work my way up, and I just want you to know that.”
But to move into a newsroom job, she needed to pass a writing test. Despite holding a master’s degree in mass communications from Arizona State, she failed the station’s exam three times.
Titla said she had experience writing for newspapers, but she wasn’t familiar with the broadcast style. She didn’t give up, however. She went back to ASU for a TV news writing course, then promptly passed the test to become a production assistant.
“I was so excited when the news anchor read a 30-second voiceover for the first time on the air,” Titla said. “I said to myself, ‘I wrote that story!”
A short time later, Titla moved to Tucson for a job with KVOA-TV whereas a general-assignment reporter in 1987 she became the first Native broadcast journalist in the state, a distinction honored by the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication when she was inducted into its hall of fame in 2006.
Titla said her family and friends back in San Carlos gathered to watch her on-air “like it was the Super Bowl.”
Titla said she faced challenges as a Native journalist in the mainstream TV news industry, but her background played to her favor when Pope John Paul II visited with about 16,000 Native American Catholics in 1987 in Phoenix because it allowed her to cover the event with more depth and context than other reporters.
“I was utilized as an expert because I could talk about what was happening in the arena,” Titla said. “I could speak to a lot of the key players.”
‘A voice for the Native people’
She stayed in TV news until 2005, when she left citing fatigue and apathy. She was looking for a new way to make a difference and decided to campaign for a spot in the U.S. House of Representatives. She said she was only the fourth Native person to run for an Arizona congressional seat.
“I wanted to be a voice for the Native people and speak to our issues,” she said. “I had lived their struggles and knew their poverty and felt I could make a difference.”
The district sprawled across seven reservations and stretched into northern and eastern Phoenix. Among her campaign strategies was going door-to-door to rally support.
“I remember going to homes in the middle of the summer and there was no electricity or air-conditioning,” she said. “These people were struggling to survive.”
She said their immediate needs proved too great a barrier to overcome.
“They asked me, ‘How is my voting for you going to help me today? Can you help me put food on the table today? Can you help me get my cooler back on so my kids can be safe?’ Those were tough questions, and I could only answer, ‘I may not be able to help you today, but I can help you down the road,’” adding later, “It was tough to get anyone to vote when they already had so much to deal with at home.”
Titla lost the 2008 race to Ann Kirkpatrick but took the setback as an opportunity to start over again. She went back home to San Carlos to teach kindergarten.
“Being a kindergarten teacher is 10 times as challenging as running for Congress, and running for Congress is intense,” Titla said, laughing. “Being in a room with 25 kindergartners and no experience … wow! That was a humbling experience.”
It was also enlightening. She said she learned that one of the biggest challenges to education on Indian reservations “is that most of the schools do not have administrators who are Native American, and most of the educators are not Native American.”
She said it’s “hard to teach our children with the culturally appropriate curriculum when a lot of the teachers couldn’t relate to the material or to the students they’re teaching.
We are rapidly moving through the 21st century, and many of our children do not know or comprehend what it means to be American Indian in this modern age and what it will take to save our language and cultural way of life.”
“There’s a saying in Indian Country, ‘The honor of one is the honor of all.’ … We help young people pursue their dreams, and there is no greater honor than that.”
— Mary Kim Titla, ASU alumni and UNITY executive director
She moved into an administrative role within the San Carlos school district and assisted with communications and lobbying. Titla “could turn a negative situation into a positive outcome in a matter of minutes,” said Mary Kay Stevens, who worked with Titla in San Carlos.
The district’s superintendent, Richard Wilde, suggested that Titla participates in a principal training program. To meet the requirements, she returned to ASU for a second master’s, this one in education administration and supervision. It wasn’t easy, she said, but her persistence got her through.
“It was probably the most stressful year of my life, and my body was responding. I broke out in hives and was hospitalized a few times,” Titla said. “It was also the most exhilarating and rewarding time in my life because I truly understood the educational system and the challenges everyone faces on an Indian reservation.”
A new challenge
By 2013, she was ready for the challenge that would mark her greatest success in advocating for Native youth. She became UNITY’s second executive director, stepping into the top position of a nonprofit organization dedicated to creating young leaders by focusing on the social, spiritual, physical and mental development.
It’s another return home. Back in 1978, Titla said, “I begged my parents to take me to Oklahoma City” for a UNITY conference. “My parents saw a spark in me, and they wanted to fan the spark, so they drove me and two of my younger siblings all the way to Oklahoma from San Carlos. Nearly 40 years later, here I am as executive director. Who would’ve thought?”
Under Titla, the group’s number of youth councils has expanded from 135 to 160, and its national conference attendance has increased from 1,200 to about 1,800 young people. She also has helped raise money, more than doubling new revenue over the past three years, averaging about $250,000 each year in new money.
She also created the “25 Under 25 Youth Leadership Awards” program to recognize young people dedicated to serving their communities, and this year she launched an alumni association for UNITY to create stronger ties to its past.
The group will hold its 40th-anniversary national conference next month in Oklahoma City. The organization expects record attendance.
“Mary Kim literally rebuilt the legacy of the program from the ground up,” said Nataanni Hatathlie, a Stanford University junior who has held a leadership position in the organization. He called Titla “a dedicated leader, very strong-willed and tenacious in the most passionate way.”
Titla’s alma mater has noticed her accomplishments. Bryan McKinley Jones Brayboy, President’s Professor, director of the Center of Indian Education and ASU’s special adviser to the president on American Indian affairs, said he envisions a long-term relationship with UNITY and Titla because it’s aligned with ASU’s overall mission.
“We believe in youth leadership, in assisting young people in creating their own futures, in organizing big ideas led by youth,” Brayboy said. “In short, it is easy for us to get behind a program and project like UNITY that is future-focused.”