Get to know Maria Loving, social media and web communications specialist, USD 259

After dabbling in digital communications in her last job, Maria Loving is devoting all her energies to it for the Wichita school district.

"My main goal at the district is to use storytelling to increase engagement on the district's social media and web sites," she said.

Loving grew up in Millville, N.J., and earned a journalism degree from Rutgers University. After working in advertising for her hometown newspaper and another in Pittsburgh, Pa., she moved to Wichita with her husband, Dan, in 1996. She worked for The Wichita Eagle for several years, then spent 17 years as a communications coordinator for Via Christi Health, handling internal and external communications and managing Via Christi's social media sites and wellness blog.

"I had a great opportunity at Via Christi to hone my writing skills," she said. "I enjoyed my time there and the people that I worked with, but I just felt it was time to take on a new challenge."

She started work at the school district three weeks ago. She's overseeing content on its social media sites and website and also supports the websites and social media presence of individual schools.

"Some of what I do is go out and cover different events at schools, then write a web story and share it on various social media sites," she said.

The Lovings have two sons — Brett, 18, and Casey, 16 — a senior and sophomore at Maize High School. Maria enjoys crafting and is "very involved in my children's school events. They're both pretty active with extracurricular activities."

Joe Stumpe

This story was originally published December 12, 2017 at 6:03 PM with the headline "Get to know Maria Loving, social media and web communications specialist, USD 259."