Mare Payne: jack-of-all-trades

As the associate director of the News Bureau, Mare Payne calls herself a jack-of-all-trades.

“I hope ‘master of none’ doesn’t apply,” she said.

Among her list of responsibilities are managing the News Bureau Web site, editing copy, overseeing the office finances and human resources, and editing eweek, the weekly campus email notices. She also is the editor of Postmarks, a tabloid newspaper sent to parents of undergraduates each semester.

Although Mare’s title comprises a wide range of tasks, it is also the aspect of her job she enjoys the most.

“I like the variety and the fact that there is sort of no typical day,” Mare said. “There’s really nothing I don’t like doing.”

Before receiving a master’s in journalism from the U. of I. in 1982, she taught high school English in Villa Grove, Ill., for two years.

“I taught my students writing, and I began to realize that I was actually jealous of all the writing they were doing,” Mare said. “I thought I’d like to try writing myself so on the last day that applications were accepted, I turned mine in to the journalism school, got accepted and quit my teaching job.”

After working as the features editor for the Galesburg Register Mail, marriage brought her back to Champaign-Urbana, and Mare began her employment at the News Bureau in 1983. She was hired first as a science writer, an area she said intimidated her.

“The way I rationalized it to myself was that if you’re a good reporter, you can write about anything. And I thought I was a good reporter,” Mare said. Over the years she covered arts, education and more science and spent 9 years as editor of Inside Illinois, “which other long-serving employees will recall was called IlliniWeek until 1990.”

When Mare became the associate director in 1996, she knew she would miss the creative aspects of her previous writing and reporting jobs.

“I asked to keep Postmarks when I switched jobs to keep my hand in that creative part,” she said.

 Mare's Career Progression at the University of Illinois

Outside of the office, Mare enjoys spending time outdoors in their woodland with her husband, Jim, and their four dogs, whom they consider their children “with four legs.” In 2006 she was appointed by the governor to the Illinois Nature Preserves Commission, which protects high-quality natural areas and habitats of threatened and endangered species throughout the state.

Mare and Jim also keep busy volunteering – for WILL pledge drives, Urbana Free Library book sales and closest to their hearts, the Champaign County Humane Society. Mare chairs its annual Memorial Day GIANT Garage Sale, which last year raised $45,000 for the animals.

“It’s a lot of work,” she said, “but that was a remarkable payoff.”

Though she admits it is not often, when Mare finds time to relax, she enjoys reading and a new love: quilting.

“My first finished quilt is hanging on my office wall,” she said.

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