“I find joy and encouragement from women that stay the course, that through their commitment to whatever it is, they meet obstacles with optimism.” -Sandra Varner Summary: Media relations expert Sandra Varner, founder of Varner PR Agency and Talk2SV, talks with BlackFemaleProject podcast host Leslie Stoval in Episode 8 of Season 2. Sandra shares how she found her way from studying computer science in college to a 20+ year career in journalism, dedicated to illuminating the true stories of underserved and vulnerable populations and elevating the visibility of nonprofit organizations. Finding the common thread among differences is one of her specialties, a skill developed through the contrasts of growing up in the segregated South and later moving to the Bay Area.
“I find joy and encouragement from women that stay the course, that through their commitment to whatever it is, they meet obstacles with optimism.” -Sandra Varner
Summary: Media relations expert Sandra Varner, founder of Varner PR Agency and Talk2SV, talks with BlackFemaleProject podcast host Leslie Stoval in Episode 8 of Season 2. Sandra shares how she found her way from studying computer science in college to a 20+ year career in journalism, dedicated to illuminating the true stories of underserved and vulnerable populations and elevating the visibility of nonprofit organizations. Finding the common thread among differences is one of her specialties, a skill developed through the contrasts of growing up in the segregated South and later moving to the Bay Area.
HOST: Leslie Stoval
GUEST: Sandra Varner
VIDEO OF THIS INTERVIEW: https://vimeo.com/showcase/6960281/video/440438552
RESOURCES:
Varner PR Agency - https://www.facebook.com/varnerpr/
Talk to SV - https://www.youtube.com/user/svtalks/featured
Mother of Peace Orphanage, Zimbabwe - https://www.allen-temple.org/mother-of-peace-community
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Precious Stroud (00:07):
BlackFemaleProject.
Leslie Stoval (00:14):
This is Leslie Stoval, your guest host for the BlackFemaleProject podcast. Learn more about our work at www.BlackFemaleProject.org.
(00:26):
Hi there I'm Leslie Stovall and, uh, talking with Sandra Varner today. This is for the BlackFemaleProject and Sandra qualifies in all categories there. Sandra established the Varner PR agency in 1991 to develop and implement community media and public relations objectives for businesses and organizations. Varner has invaluable experience in newspaper radio television, travel we'll get into that, tourism, sports, cultural and performing arts, political faith based healthcare and private sector initiatives. In 2008, foreigner established Talk To SV a broadcast and digital platform to address and fill an important gap in the Bay areas, TV and digital programming environments for local small businesses nationally and internationally Varner has coordinated substantial media relations campaigns as well. Engaged hundreds of top celebrities, clergy, Newsmakers, elected officials, athletes, corporate executives, and community leaders in dynamic conversations about their career endeavors.
(01:33):
She knows everybody believe that collectively Verna has over 20 contiguous years of dedicated pursuit illuminating causes that affect underserved and vulnerable populations. Along with elevating the visibility of nonprofit organizations, she's got a lot on their plate. The unique combination of an accomplished public relations background and an esteemed journalism track record Varner PR agency and talked to SV are recognized entities with specialized proficiencies. Varner is a proud graduate of Southern university in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, a registered small local enterprise business with Alameda County, a member of Delta Sigma, theta sorority. They were red and, uh, the Bay area business round table women, film critics circle, and the center of hope community church in Oakland, California. Welcome Sandra
Sandra Varner (02:24):
welcome. And that is exhausting.
Leslie Stoval (02:27):
And you know, you've always been on the Vanguard and I always appreciated what you were doing. I'm in the radio. And I always saw that you were out promoting everything everyday, working hard and, and, and helping the Black community. I just want to say, thank you to me from me.
Sandra Varner (02:43):
Thank you for that. That means so much because that has been the heartbeat of the business. And while we have touched lives of many people across many ethnic backgrounds in our heart is making sure that African Americans, the same kind of attention that everybody else gets, but rarely has the opportunity to do so.
Leslie Stoval (03:08):
How did you, did you get a visual one night and say, this is what I'm going to do? I mean, how did this come about the genesis? Give me the genesis
Sandra Varner (03:15):
Actually very good question. Because when I went to college many, many moons ago, the advice I got was not to major in journalism. That was my goal. Going to school. I would be a journalism major. I wanted to do broadcast news and so forth and was told the way of the future is technology. And I tell certain people that who are certainly my junior and they get a chuckle because they think, well, we had, you had computers back then. Absolutely. But the advice that the college advisor had was technology is the way of the future and encouraged me to do that. And I did, I went in that direction, uh, but my heart was in journalism, got a degree in computer science and started working in the field. However, the calling was in journalism. So after about five years working as a programmer software programmer, hadn't it really was. It was, it was just the way I had, it was a way ahead notion of in my career. Uh, so that working for a newspaper fell in love with it. Um, my assignment was, it was the Houston Defender in Houston, Texas.
Leslie Stoval (04:36):
It's a Black paper,
Sandra Varner (04:37):
yes, it's still Sonceria Messiah Jiles. And, um, the opportunity was to interview celebrities for her paper.
Leslie Stoval (04:47):
And so, and as you and I both know in interviewing celebrities, you have to tack a little bit. Cause a lot of people don't know they're very, um, insecure indeed. And they're used to everybody saying you're the best ever, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And so we talk about that. So you have to like, keep that going because the objective is to interview the task at hand and to facilitate that right.
Sandra Varner (05:11):
Completely.
Leslie Stoval (05:12):
But we found that, huh?
Sandra Varner (05:14):
Yeah. It's just such an amazing seemingly dichotomy of personality here. You are, you have millions of people who love you, but you're introverted usually. And you have to be coaxed into the stardom that your talent got you. It's I've never understood it actually. Okay.
Leslie Stoval (05:34):
Yeah. Well, you know, it's like, like for me, when I'm on the air, I'm a different person than when, when I'm at home. Cause I'm home. I just like, I'm an introvert. I stay home with my cat and read. That's what I do.
Sandra Varner (05:46):
Wow.
Leslie Stoval (05:47):
You know, I like taking walks, nature walks and stuff like that. Anyway, this is about you.
Sandra Varner (05:52):
It's about us.
Leslie Stoval (05:54):
Well, I thank you very much for, including me in, in your company. So hometown?
Sandra Varner (06:00):
A town, probably about as big as this table, very small town in Louisiana, Winnsboro, Louisiana. And uh, actually last year, uh, classmate became the first African American mayor to be mayor of Winnsboro Louisiana.
Leslie Stoval (06:18):
Oh, nice.
Sandra Varner (06:20):
So that center, the Northeast part of the state
Leslie Stoval (06:23):
And give me a Shero who would be a shero of yours?
Sandra Varner (06:27):
Oh man, I have several, uh, those that are still with us would be my two sisters. They very much factor prominently in my life. Uh, my mom who passed a couple of years ago, um, just a wonderful lady who lived a great strong life. And there are many of them, I guess I caution to start a list because we don't have that much time, Leslie. But I, I find joy and encouragement from women that stay the course that through their commitment to whatever it is, they meet obstacles with optimism. So people who are defining that way are my sheroes and heroes.
Leslie Stoval (07:12):
Mine too mine too, because it's how you meet the challenges, you know? Cause you're going to have them every day and that's okay.
Sandra Varner (07:20):
Great time to pray. That is a great time to pray because prayer is a very central part of my life. And it seems that when you engage God in prayer at the most inopportune time, but others' definition is the time of grace. He just bestows grace upon you to realize, Hey, you know what? We're all out of here, stuff together. Some of us have got to be nice or gets you through that.
Leslie Stoval (07:50):
It's so true. It's so true. No PR and marketing and advertising. It's very racially sensitive. And how have you navigated it? Because it's, you know, you ever watch the show Mad Men.
Sandra Varner (08:05):
I tried, I don't know. For what reason it does. Didn't add it. Didn't take, I don't know why. I think Leslie, my approach has always been and a phrase we hear often, but what is the common core that we all have? Right? We breathe, right? We talk, we walk, the commonality is where you start the conversation where you start the process of engagement and where you start to develop the messaging. So I always look for what is a common core, a common thread that we all share. Right? And if we have to make a specific message or campaign on a brochure, of course we do that. But the commonality is really what tells the story, what conveys the message, what allows you to reach the end goal? And that is communicating.
Leslie Stoval (09:00):
Right. Right. And I, I agree with you because it's like, okay, you have a product here. I w w what about it is compelling to everyone, right? That's right.
Sandra Varner (09:14):
One of the things that I think became even more clear or clearer is being in the Bay area. Now this is, this is going to sound strange, but I knew nothing about earthquakes until I moved here. And my first earthquake, I remember distinctly because I thought somebody was breaking into my apartment. I didn't know what that feeling was like. Yeah. And it was just, I woke up screaming and I realized, Oh my God, this is what it feels like.
Leslie Stoval (09:45):
Wow. Okay. Okay.
Sandra Varner (09:47):
From that point forward, I started to recognize the humanity, that surfaces, when things like earthquakes or fires at that point, I don't care who you are, where you came from, what you look like, it's your humanity that I care about helping each other, get through a tough time.
Leslie Stoval (10:07):
We're all in the same boat.
Sandra Varner (10:08):
We're all in the same boat, your house shakes, my house shakes. You, you know, and I think that strange way and epiphany from all of that became, if you need blood, you don't care who I am. You just want to make sure the type matches, right? So the Bay area was a great birthing place for that kind of pinky, because I grew up in the segregated South where everything was defined by Black and white, everything as a child, you can only imagine the imprint that that has on you. But when I moved to the Bay area, it was an opening. It was, um, for my mind, am I thinking to realize, move past a definition of Black and white and move into the embrace of humanity. So I've loved the Bay area for that reason alone.
Leslie Stoval (10:59):
I like the Bay area for that because it's, it's just like, I always grew up being taught richness of difference. I went to Jewish summer camp in the Catskills. Yeah, my parents, my mother's, um, she was getting her master's at Ohio State and her professor Morris Eisenstein, Russian Jew had us a summer camp in East New York Van Sickling in Brooklyn. And so I'm this Midwest, ubër Midwestern, quiet, very proper formal. And I go to this Jewish summer camp, everybody's all over the place and I'm meating with Jews and Italians and Puerto Ricans people I'd never met before. And my, my whole whole world just like opened up. I go, Oh, I mean, and you know, I want to believe this it's all about relationships. And the more that we interact with other people in different cultures and stuff, the more we see how much we have alike
Sandra Varner (11:54):
Completely,
Leslie Stoval (11:55):
you know, and which is a beautiful thing.
Sandra Varner (11:57):
It is. And it takes the pressure off of, um, the way we present or the way we identify, because I'm just talking to another human being.
Leslie Stoval (12:08):
So if you had a Black female Mount Rushmore, who would be those,
Sandra Varner (12:13):
Oh, what an amazing and amazing question. I like the phrase, you know,
Leslie Stoval (12:18):
who would it be on it?
Sandra Varner (12:19):
Well, certainly my mom, probably my first grade teacher,
Leslie Stoval (12:24):
what's her name?
Sandra Varner (12:24):
Barbara Rawlins. She always made us feel so good about ourselves. And she was careful that we would not tease each other or make each other feel bad or, or point out, um, frailties in each other. And can you imagine, I won't reveal my age, but at the age that I am, I can date back to my first grade teacher. And I still feel the impact of her turning us into human beings that paid attention to each other, and that esteemed each other long before they became a popular way of treating me each other.
(13:07):
So my first grade teacher, my mom, my first grade teacher, of course, I mean, everybody hears Oprah, but I'll tell you why Oprah, because I connect with her in the ways that she grew up in the South, in the segregated South. And we were taught to speak the King's English and to lose the accent and to navigate our way through, by sounding in a way that was acceptable across the board
Leslie Stoval (13:34):
general market
Sandra Varner (13:35):
general market. That's what I'm looking for. And I appreciate the fact that she was a woman who was not a size two. And she broke through the barrier of being told you have to be a size two, if you want to be in TV and all these things. So I relate to her in that way. So she remains one of the persons I love so much. And there's someone that you probably won't know.
(13:59):
Um, but she runs an AIDS orphanage in Zimbabwe, Mama Jean Cornet. The thing I loved so much about Mama Jean is I met her gosh, close to 20 years ago. And their approach to caring for children who were orphaned by AIDS was to love them, was to treat them with kindness and generosity of spirit, to hug them, to let them know that they are loved and cared for in a nurturing environment that did not have all the riches or all the spoils of a world, but they had pure love and genuine concern. So Mama Jean and maybe the other two are yet to be determined. How's that let us know. I, I definitely have to do an update.
Leslie Stoval (14:53):
I really appreciate you sharing your humanity and your capacity for love because it's, it's evident. Now, if I want, if I need a PR person, how do I get ahold of Sandra? I tell everyone if you want to find me, just put my name in Google and there I am, but I am Varner PR agency spell it. V as in victory, a R E N E R P as in public, R as in relations, Varner PR just look me up and I'm there. And hopefully you'll see us in because we're rebranding. We're getting a new social media identity. We're getting a new web presence. Now that will be unveiled in the next quarter of the year,
Sandra Varner (15:40):
let us know because we want to help you get that out there.
Leslie Stoval (15:41):
Thank you.
Sandra Varner (15:43):
Thank you. This was so great. It's just a calming presence. I appreciate that.
Leslie Stoval (15:48):
Oh, thank God you are too. And I appreciate that too. And I'm a wonderful person. Wonderful person. All right. Take care. Thank you so much. [inaudible]
Precious Stroud (15:59):
BlackFemaleProject.
Leslie Stoval (16:05):
Thank you for listening to the BlackFemaleProject podcast, BlackFemaleProject works to positively impact the wellness and professional experience of Black women. We celebrate women who thrive at work and share their stories with the girls coming behind us. Learn more at www.BlackFemaleProject.org follow us on social media at BlackFemaleProject. This is Leslie. Stoval, thanks for listening to the BlackFemaleProject podcast.