by Caroline Gabsewics
Staff Writer
Behind all of her reporter notebooks and countless hours punching out stories by deadline is a woman whose name is synonymous with Jacksonville news ... but Karen Mathis is much more.
Mathis is the wife of 22 years to Circuit Court Judge E. McRae Mathis, the mother of two teenage boys, and could not imagine doing anything other than being a reporter.
Mathis, senior business writer at the Florida Times-Union, has bounced from print journalism to broadcast journalism and back all right here in Jacksonville. After graduating with a major in journalism from the University of Missouri at Columbia in May 1978, she was hired at the Times-Union as a business reporter that June. Little did she know, 28 years later she would not only be at the same newspaper, but also still writing for the business section.
“I wanted to be a journalist since high school,” said Mathis. “It’s just in your blood.”
She helped revive her high school newspaper and unlike many people, she went into college knowing exactly what she wanted to do.
“It made sense; you meet so many people and get to go so many places,” she said.
A lot has happened in both the newspaper business as well as her life since 1978. After growing up on a farm outside of St. Louis and going to college, she was an intern at the daily newspaper in Beaumont, Texas. She found her way to Jacksonville after other reporters and editors from the paper were hired at the Times-Union. As well as working at the Times-Union she also worked on-air for WJCT, the local public television station. She left the Times-Union in February 1980 and started working full-time at the TV station.
“I absolutely loved public television,” she said.
In August 1981 there were looming budget cuts at the station and there was an opening at the Times-Union on the copy desk, said Mathis.
“They hired me and three months later a business reporter position opened and I have been doing that ever since,” she said.
Over the years, Mathis held the positions of assistant business editor and business editor for the Jacksonville Journal — Times-Union’s afternoon paper that is no longer in print.
“After I came back from maternity leave (in 1989 after her second child) I started writing business columns,” she said.
Since then she has been writing three columns a week for the business section as well as spending time on “Good Morning Jacksonville” and on WJCT’s Week in Review.
Although it seems like she has a full schedule already, Mathis still finds time to keep up with her sons Eric, 18 and Alex, 16. Both attend Bishop Kenny High school and Eric is in the process of choosing a college to attend this fall. Mathis said Eric plays baseball and both play football.
“They keep me very very busy,” she said. “But it is fun.”
Mathis didn’t play sports as a kid, but when Eric turned 5 years old, she and her husband signed him up for every sport. With youth sports comes obligations: drinks, snacks, rides, time in the concession stand. But, Mathis found another way to contribute.
“Eric started playing T-ball and I was asked to be an assistant coach,” she said. “That was the most fun I have ever had in the sports world.”
Mathis volunteered to coach the 5-year-olds despite not knowing much about the sport, but soon picked up on the intricacies of T-ball.
“I would run through the basics with them, like running the bases in the correct order,” she said. “(During games) my post was in right field and I had some of the best conversations out there.”
When her sons grew out of T-ball, Mathis stopped coaching and became a score keeper at her son’s games.
“Now I keep my own score or I am available when they need me,” she said. “I love keeping score.”
Of course she has a special interest in the business section, but Mathis now find herself reading the sports section, too.
“I always read the high school sports section,” said Mathis. “I even recognize the names in the paper because I coached many of them when they were 5 years old.”
Mathis met her husband in Jacksonville while working on a retail bankruptcy article. She said he was a prosecutor before becoming Circuit Court Judge.
“It has been a fascinating time to watch him move from the prosecuting office to a judge,” she said. “Now that he is on the bench, we don’t really discuss a lot of work at home. We keep that separate.”
Mathis has only seen Judge Mathis in court twice and wishes she could see him on the job more often.
Interestingly, both came from families with 13 brothers and sisters. Every June, the Mathis’ make their way to St. Louis for a family reunion with her family — a gathering that usually grows beyond the family tree.
“We have so many relatives, it has turned into a neighborhood and church reunion, too,” she said. “It has gotten so big that politicians attend it now. It is not your typical family reunion.”
Mathis said she and her husband spend spare time with friends or try and catch the latest movie.
When asked if she wasn’t a reporter, what would she be doing, Mathis said, “One day I would like to see what life is like on the other side of the newspaper.”