Story by Deb Peterson | Photographed by Kim Singer
Vicki Vowell knows who she is and what she wants, and she has the tenacity it takes to turn her visions into reality. She always has.
The Harrison native who started AY Magazine with a handful of helpers in 1988 is preparing to celebrate 25 years in the magazine business in May 2013. It hasn’t been easy, but it’s been rewarding.
I met with Vicki at her AY offices in a charming old building in Little Rock. It was clear from the moment we shook hands that she is a complicated woman—fun, but professional, immaculately dressed in a white suit, but sporting a messy pony tail.
Photographer Kim Singer was with me, and we took care of the photo shoot first. Vicki was gracious as we moved furniture and called in Editor Angela Thomas, who wasn’t expecting to be photographed and had dressed casually that day, rare for her. Kim pulled off her sweater and offered it to Angela, who laughed and immediately put it on. It was clear that both Vicki and Angela are willing to do whatever it takes to get the job done.
“I’ve sacrificed a lot,” Vicki said when we closed the beautiful French doors to talk, “but I’ve gained so much more. I have been very blessed to create something from nothing. I’m not afraid of hard work.”
Hard work is what it took to get a new magazine off the ground before the digital age. The journalism major from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville loved story, and she had some things to say. She was thoughtful and sensitive, perfect characteristics for a writer, and she knew a great story when she heard one.
“Arkansas has so many great stories,” she says. She just needed a vehicle for sharing them.
In 1988, and for many years after, Vicki didn’t have the luxury of the graphic design tools we have today. She put the magazine together by hand and drove it to Mountain Home at 3 a.m. to get it published.
In those early days, she also had severe anxiety and panic attacks. She wouldn’t travel, and needed someone to go with her to interviews.
“It took a long time,” she says today, “but I overcame it. I’m on the other side.”
Her family was extremely important in her recovery, she says, and although some of her magazine duties caused her anxiety, the magazine was also her way through it.
“It challenged me,” she says. “It made me think. It made me a better woman. If you’re absolutely in love with what you do, if you’re very passionate, you can overcome anything. ‘No’ is a challenge.”
The Magazine Today
Vicki didn’t just overcome those early challenges, she soared past them. Today, AY “About You” is the largest lifestyle magazine in Arkansas with more than 146,300 monthly readers. Its mission is to inform and entertain by providing accurate information that enriches lives.
“What is so cool to me,” Vicki says, “is that we make a difference. We focus on the real. People have read our stories and they have changed their lives.”
Two of the magazine’s projects Vicki is most proud of are Singles, featuring singles events and monthly profiles of singles, and Runway for a Cause.
“Runway is about life and sisterhood and love,” she says.
The annual style show and luncheon featured models who were breast cancer survivors. The event raised more than $1 million in 10 years, all of which went to charities involved with fighting breast cancer. Last year there were more than 1,000 attendees.
“The best part is all the friendships I’ve made,” Vicki says of Runway. “Their priorities are amazing.”
This summer, Vicki reinvented her role at the magazine and turned the event over to new hands outside of AY. Taking the position of Chief Executive Officer at Vowell, Inc., she also turned over day-to-day operations to a new publisher, Scott Harrell, and is ready to look at new challenges for the magazine, new growth opportunities for the company. She has always been the magazine’s visionary, but now that’s her primary job description.
“The magazine has a wonderfully beautiful voice. It’s creative and knowledgeable,” she says. “It will continue to grow and evolve.”
She is especially pleased about the recent merger with TBQ, Talk Business Quarterly, the only business magazine in Arkansas “that reaches affluent decision makers.” She plans to publish it bimonthly starting in 2013.
The look in her eyes when she talks about the future tells me she has lots of similar ideas in mind.
“I have a vision for the future that is extremely bright,” she says. “I’m very hands on, but I’m not a control freak. Something may be my idea, but many people make it successful.”
The Woman
“It’s hard for me to slow down,” Vicki says of her new role in the company, “but it’s time for me to back off of being so involved.”
After suffering with vertigo for two years, so often that she moved a sofa into her office so she could lie down, she was finally diagnosed with Ménière’s disease. A correct diagnosis and injections in her inner ear have solved the problem.
“We finally got it right,” she says. “You learn how important health is. Life is a lesson you learn every day.”
While her new job as CEO is designed to give her more time for her personal life—traveling, jogging, working in her yard, painting “long-necked women” in acrylics, and taking her dogs, Sadie and Max, to the dog park where they “rock and roll”—it would be a mistake to see it as semi-retirement. No matter what she’s focused on, Vicki is intensely passionate about it.
“When I decide on something,” she says, “I’m all in.”
With that kind of fire, I knew she would have some valuable advice for the rest of us. She does.
1. You are responsible for yourself. Create your life. Make your own decisions. Even if you have a partner, you need to be responsible for your own decisions. We can make our destiny happen.
2. Get out of bed and be excited about the opportunities of the day. Be enthusiastic. If you are truly passionate, it will come through.
It’s clear that Vicki follows her own advice. She’s passionate about life, work, you and your great Arkansas stories, about the future.
Visit AY Magazine online at aymag.com, and TBQ at tbqmag.com.
M! ON 2012
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