Lake Travis is a special place to live. The natural beauty of the hill country, combined with all of wonderful restaurants, stores, outdoor recreation and other services make this area unique. Just this morning my husband and I were talking about all of the wonderful things we can do here, from golfing to boating to hiking on our local trails. You might think this weekly blog will be about those treasures, but I will focus on our neighbors who are treasures too! Each week I will feature a neighbor that has inspired us and helped to make our community better, just by their sharing of their gifts.
I selected the first neighbor I will feature because I was curious as to why she does what she does. I do not just think of her once in a while, I think of her at least once a day if not more! Joy Hrobak has contributed so much in helping our community with her e-mailed community bulletin board that I just had to meet her and share with others what I learned about her.
If you are not a subscriber to her board, then you have definitely been out of the loop about news in the Lake Travis area. But I am getting ahead of myself, let me share what I learned about Joy….
Joy and her husband, Bob, have lived in the Hills of Lakeway for about 17 years. Joy was born in Yantis, Texas and Bob is from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Yantis had a population of 200 when Joy was born there and today the population is still only 321. The Hrobaks still own a log cabin there that they visit occasionally.
Joy has had several jobs throughout her life time, but perhaps the most exciting was when she was flight attendant for Eastern airlines. She was selected, along with 3 other attendants, to work the campaign plane for the Goldwater/Miller presidential ticket. At that time there were 1700 attendants and this was a highly coveted assignment!
She has had the good fortune to live in many wonderful places including Florida, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Cincinnati, Honolulu and Japan. But, she loves the Lake Travis area most of all and is happy to be retired here!
So how did the bulletin board begin? About 12 years ago Joy was the newly tasked Social Chairman for The Hills Country Club. This was a volunteer position (as is the bulletin board!) and Joy began to realize there was no way to get the word out about events occurring at The Hills. The board began with just club members, but it has quickly grown from there. She started with 400 e-mail addresses and now has over 1,500.
The first post, other than social events, was for a boat for sale. She doubted that it would sell because of her list but it sold to the first person that contacted the seller! Now she posts items from time shares to jewelry, non profit events to restaurant specials, cars to toys. The posts that Joy is sure to get out right away are those regarding lost pets. She is happy to have reconnected many pet owners with their beloved animals. There are some things she will not post and really takes a close look at the posting to see if someone might be “pulling her leg”. To post, you must include your name, number and email. She prefers that posts be 50 words or less and she finds that she averages 12 postings a day. She is using the AOL email system which requires she break up her email messages in packets, so it sometimes takes her 6 hours to get out 12 posts!
So, why does Joy spend such a great amount of time on the Bulletin Board? Because she recognizes that many people have been helped by it. She plans on continuing to post items, but has been thinking about a transition down the road. She is considering some changes to her process to shorten her time commitment, but nothing is firm for now. I was glad to learn that she won the Lake Travis Chamber of Commerce Unsung Hero Award last year. In my opinion that is a well deserved honor because she has given so much of her time to help out so many of our neighbors!
To join Joy’s distribution list simply e-mail her at jhrobak@aol.com.
Check back next Monday to learn more about another local “Treasure”.
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