Poodle Mistess

By Sandi Latimer

Poodle Mistess

Sandi Latimer, author of Poodle Mistress, is a journalist by profession, starting as an area correspondent to the Bucyrus Telegraph-Forum when she was in the eighth grade. Two days after receiving her bachelor’s degree in broadcast journalism from Kent State University, she returned to the communications field. She has broadcast experience in radio stations in Bucyrus and Delaware, Ohio; and more than 22 years experience as a general assignment reporter for United Press International in Columbus, Ohio.

In 1968, she moved into public relations, working in medical communications at The Ohio State University Medical Center, and later covered state government for Hannah News Service. While working at Hannah News, she also started working part-time in the evenings for the sports agate desk of the Columbus Dispatch and worked there for 10 years.

In 2001 she left Hannah News and started working at the Columbus Messenger as a part-time staff writer where she currently writes for several of the weekly editions.

In 2002, while looking for routes for her walking club, Olentangy Owls, she took a walk into Green Lawn where she learned Green Lawn was looking for someone to do their newsletter. “I walked in to find a walking route and walked out their newsletter editor,” she says.

After publishing three editions of the newsletter, she was asked to be volunteer coordinator on a part-time basis. “When I asked who my volunteers were and what they do, I was told I had to find volunteers and I had to find jobs for them,” she says. “It’s like what came first, the chicken or the egg.”

She currently holds the two part-time jobs, volunteers on the Food Line at HandsOn Central Ohio and walks every chance she gets as she maps out routes for the Olentangy Owls and the Discover Franklin County walking program.

As head of the volunteers, she has created the calendar for Green Lawn using photos from the annual photo contest. She also goes into the community doing historical programs, writes and edits the quarterly newsletter, sets up the popular First Saturday programs and conducts tours of Green Lawn while looking for more volunteers to help out on the grounds..

Her volunteer work has enabled her to be appointed to the RSVP advisory board and she also represents RSVP on the Foster Grand Parents advisory board. As a volunteer coordinator, she is a member of the Columbus chapter of Volunteer Administrator’s Network where she serves as co-chair of the membership committee.

She has been a member of Ohio Professional Writers/National Federation of Press Women for more than 30 years and has won several awards for writing at both the state and local levels. She is also a member of the Ohio Writers Guild and Writers’ Ink where she has learned different forms of writing. Her first book, Poodle Mistress, the autobiographical story of life with nine toy poodles, was published in February 2011.

This book tells the story of Sandi meeting an Ohio Highway Patrol pilot who was raising toy poodles.

“I don’t know who fell in love with whom first – me or the dogs,” Sandi says. But within a year, she married Red, the pilot. During the next 27 years the couple opened their home, their hearts and their lives to nine toy poodles.

Poodle Mistress was independently published by iUniverse with the designation of Editor’s Choice for quality of writing.