Author Documents Career in Mennonite Media in New Book

By JILLIAN LYNCH, Daily News-Record

HARRISONBURG, Va. (AP) It was from humble beginnings that Melodie Davis, at the age of 16, intrepidly stepped into the world of Christian media.

It was on the humble floor of a chicken house that Davis, now 70, a local retired Christian media professional and author, took her first steps toward her field, she said.

On this day, November 18, 1967, Davis wrote in her new book, Sunday afternoon at 4:30 p.m., I decided what I want to be: a Christian writer.

Davis went on to work for Mennonite Media, now MennoMedia, for 43 years. She started out as a secretary not her first choice for a job title and worked her way up to a managing editor role by the time she retired in 2018.

Wanting to provide an updated history on the company and also to share about her experience as a woman in the industry at a time when that wasnt easy to do, Davis recently published Memoir of an Unimagined Career: 43 Years Inside Mennonite Media.

Davis said she wanted to share the history of her company from an engaging, inside-out perspective, drawing in her own personal life and major world events from the last half-century that illuminate her story.