A lot of great things get done in our community by people who quietly do what is needed without fanfare. One of those people getting it done is Kelli Twomey. When I told her I wanted to write her story, she quickly replied, “Nobody would be interested in my story,” Hopefully, she is wrong.
Kelli Twomey at the finish line of the Half Marathon in Davis in March. Courtesy Kelli Twomey
Twomey is currently the coordinator of Parent and Community Relations for the Tahoe Truckee Unified School District. It’s her job to tell the world about all the good things that are happening in the schools. And, there is a lot of good to tell.
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“We have the best school district ever and we want to make sure everyone knows it, and know that their kids are in the right place.”
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“We have the best school district ever and we want to make sure everyone knows it, and know that their kids are in the right place,” said Twomey. If given a minute, she will be happy to tick off a long list of awards the school district has received in the past year, including North Tahoe High School being rated as one of the Top 30 schools in all of Northern California.
TTUSD Superintendent Rob Leri says Twomey “has increased communication and opportunities for parent interactions with the school district and our schools. She is an amazing resource for the students, staff and the entire community.”
At the finish of the Half Marathon in Davis, from left, Kelli Twomey, Pam Holman, Sandy Clauss and Kristy Olk. Twomey completed the half, while the others did the 7-mile run at the Lucky Run in Davis.
Twomey’s has also served as a volunteer with the Excellence in Education Foundation for 15 years, currently serving as the board president. The Foundation’s mission is to enhance the quality of the local education system by providing grants to worthy programs. Grants totaling more than $250,000 were awarded last year. Funds are raised through a partnership between local business and the community through the purchase of Dining for Schools meals, Skiing for Schools lift tickets, and Golfing for Schools golf passes.
The latest effort by Excellence in Education is to provide Chrome Books to students in the district for use both at school and at home. The program started with eighth graders and is now expanding to sixth- and 12th-grade students. The program is “huge, my high school daughter comes home with her Chrome book, does her homework on it, gets feedback from teachers on it, and then has it with her at school,” she says.
Twomey moved to Tahoe in 1991 after growing up in Marin County and working in the South Bay. Recently married to Steve Twomey, the couple decided to give Tahoe a try. Tahoe fit because they loved the mountains, but didn’t want to be too far away from their families in the Bay Area.
With training in sales and marketing, she began by selling the beauty of Tahoe at the Visitors and Convention Bureau in Tahoe City and later at the Hyatt Regency in Incline Village.
In 1995, she became marketing director at Northstar and worked there for five years. Eventually, however, the all-consuming nature of marketing a major ski resort made it tough for her to find time to enjoy her two young daughters (Lindsey, 16, and Alex, 11), so she took time off to be with the kids.
A family shot from a camping trip in Yosemite with Kelli, Alex, Lindsey and Steve Twomey. | Courtesy Kelli Twomey
When she was ready to get back to work, she took on the task of general manager of the Tahoe Yacht Club where she was able to do a little bit of everything and see “a whole side of Tahoe that I didn’t even know existed.”
Later, Twomey directed the Tahoe Forest Hospital’s Tahoe Center for Health and Sports Performance, which gave her the opportunity to work on her passion for athletics and nutrition. Her enthusiasm for community and family then took flower at the Tahoe City Public Utility District, where she did public relations and grant writing. She was given the chance to be involved in helping to make bike trails and park improvements come to life in Tahoe.
While Twomey has a desire to help her community, she also enjoys pushing her body athletically. She likes to bike, paddle and cross-country ski, but says that running is her favorite. She has completed more than a dozen marathons, including the Boston Marathon.
Her athletic career was nearly brought to a close in 2013 when she started to feel like she was losing control over her right leg while running. After a scary month of tests, doctors discovered she had a severe narrowing of her spinal canal at several of her vertebrae. She went through extensive surgery to replace the vertebrae with artificial ones.
“If I hadn’t done the surgery and fallen, I would have been paralyzed,” she said. She couldn’t do anything dangerous for four months, but was able to do her first half marathon a year later, and has completed three since.
Now that Twomey has physically recovered she can enjoy running on the trails through her beloved Lake Tahoe, and doing her part to make the experience of being a student in North Tahoe and Truckee a better one.
For more information on the Tahoe Truckee Unified School District, visit ttusd.org.
