E265- Jordan Birnbaum: Kindness is Contagious

https://rhondaparkertaylor.com/

Rhonda Parker Taylor wanted to write a book to prove to herself that she could. For many, like Parker Taylor, writing is a difficult task. Growing up, she wasn’t a good student in English, reading or writing. She struggled with McGuffey Readers. And the phonetic concepts escaped her as a child. But she was still drawn to books, mostly encyclopedias, where she could read about the world, daring young women and journeys away from her small hometown of Noblesville. So, writing became about telling a story that was within her. And that’s what she did in her book, “Crossroads,” a suspense novel set in Indianapolis in the early 2000s and released earlier this year. The story is a journey into the life of fictional character, Paris Pennington, a powerhouse in the financial community who is forced to fulfill her civic duty and be a juror in a murder trial involving the death of a 15-year-old. But when Pennington takes the job as the jury foreman, whose name is mistakenly made public, her life begins to be picked apart as people around her start dying. Parker Taylor said she had an idea for the plot before she started writing, and she chose the scene of the crime, too. “I had Chapter One ingrained in my head. All I had to do was write it down. I worry about the mechanics after I get the story and dialogue crafted,” she said. Parker Taylor, whose book is endorsed by Golden Globe-nominated actress Mariel Hemingway, will sign copies this Saturday in Chicago and locally, on June 24, at the Barnes and Noble at River Crossing in Indianapolis. The book is the product of “passion, determination and commitment,” she said. “It took me a year to write and 20 years to introduce it.” Yes, she wrote the book in 2000 but finally got it published this year. She was born in Noblesville in 1964 and will turn 59 this fall. She is the second youngest of five children, the daughter of the late William and Anita Parker, who founded a steel manufacturing company that we know today as Noble Industries. Her sister, Brenda Parker, her best friend, is executive vice president of Noble Industries. Her brother, Gary Parker, is executive consultant of manufacturing. And her brother, Greg Parker, is president of Noble Industries. Parker Taylor spent her childhood in a two-story home surrounded by cornfields and cows in the Craig Highlands neighborhood, attended Prairie Baptist Church and Heritage Christian School, from where she graduated in 1983. Through Noble Industries and her parents’ entrepreneurial spirit, the Parkers learned to dedicate themselves to work, family and community. All of the Parker children, she said, were taught to work hard. Most of the kids gained their job experience by working at Noble Industries or for grandparents, Kenneth and Louis (Marrow) Hanna’s Ken-Lo Cafeteria (839 Conner St., according to Hamilton County historian David Heighway). Parker Taylor’s first job was bagging plastic furniture feet while watching TV and bending steel and working a punch press at Noble Industries (which was started in 1968, making metal aquarium stands part time in a 300-square-foot barn, founded in 1969 and incorporated in 1970, and has since grown to 60 employees and a 110,000-square-foot facility). During high school, she worked at Payless Shoes and Arby’s in Noblesville. After graduating high school, she earned a certification in 1984 in Fashion Merchandising in Bauder College, Arlington, Texas. Then, she returned to Indiana. Then several years later, she decided to go back to school. In 2000, she earned a bachelor’s degree in Business Science Management; in 2004, a master’s of Business Administration from Indiana Wesleyan University; and in 2010, a doctorate in Management and Leadership from University of Phoenix. (In her career, she has mentored students and young professionals, was a National College campus director and professor, co-director of an advertising agency and worked for a student loan management company. In between, she worked in the human resources department of Noble Industries. Currently, she is director of operations for Intelligent Solutions training, developing, academic research and business writing services) Her writing started through academics. “I was a business student who had to write paper after paper.” After writing her book, a publisher in 2000 backed out of a deal with her because she wasn’t interested in the business part of the industry. Brenda Parker asked her sister: “What are you afraid of?” Her sister said, “For it to succeed, you must make yourself vulnerable to disappointment.” So Parker Taylor started looking for another publisher who also assisted with the marketing. MindStir and Seacoast walked her through much of the process. Her two family mottos: “If it is meant to be, it is up to me,” and “Every day is great.” She has stuck with those mottos. Writing, for Parker Taylor, is about telling a story with a lesson learned. In “Crossroads,” she used...