Meet Anita Aubrey! Anita grew up in Marietta and moved to Athens in 1996 to go to UGA, where she graduated with a degree in Child and Family Development and then went to work in advertising sales at Flagpole Magazine, where she has been since December of 1999. Anita started playing softball when she was 8 years old and played through high school at Harrison High School. She currently plays 2nd base on a co-ed softball team for Hendershots in an Athens Clarke County adult recreation league. Anita coaches little league softball, and is currently the co-president of Athens Little League and All-Star team manager. In addition to loving softball, she loves reading and seeing live music. Anita lives on the west side of Athens with her husband Troy, their daughter Peyton and son Kiernan.
What inspired you or led to your current career?
I was the volunteer chairperson for AthFest Music & Arts Festival, and after I graduated from college there was an opening at Flagpole to work in advertising. I’d worked with Alicia [Nickles, Flagpole Magazine Publisher] during AthFest and she said you are really organized and you are not afraid to talk to people. I can teach you how to sell. So, will you come apply for this job? I did and that was almost 19 years ago!
What is your favorite restaurant in Athens, and what do you love there?
Our current favorite Athens restaurant is Seabear, the oysters and the fried clam strips.
If you could travel anywhere in the world right now, where would it be and why?
I really want to go to Ireland. I was promised a trip to Ireland for my 40th birthday. I am now 41, and I still haven’t been. It looks so beautiful, and I just want to see it.
Do you have a favorite movie?
That is a hard question. There are so many that I have watched so many times that I could recite to you like Sixteen Candles, or Dirty Dancing. I guess any of the “brat pack” movies.
Do you have any standard advice that you give to your kids regularly?
Be kind. We always talk about no matter what someone looks like on the outside (skin color, size), on the inside everyone has a heart. If you do something mean or say something mean, then you break their heart. Do you like when your heart is broken? They don’t. I think being kind is the most important thing to be.
Name three bands you would like to see, dead or alive.
Brandi Carlile, Justin Timberlake and Prince one more time. I did get to see him at the Tabernacle in Atlanta before he died. It was amazing.
What is something interesting that most people don’t know about you?
I am kind of an open book. I guess one silly thing that most people don’t know about me is that every single night I get in my bed, I am reading a book and I am eating some form of candy. Then, I have to get up and brush my teeth afterwards. My family thinks it is funny. They bought me a bunch of candy for Mother’s Day to stock my habit.
What are you currently reading?
I am currently reading The German Girl which was given to me for my birthday, and I am finally getting to it. It is about Hannah who was Jewish, in Berlin in 1939, and her great niece, Anna, in New York in 2014, and all the things Hannah went through to leave. It goes back between the two girls stories in each chapter. It is amazing.
What three words or phrases come to mind when you think of the word home?
Family, laughter, fun.
