Kayla Charles. Or, as you more likely know her, Kayla Ullom. The Flandreau native, the girl you’ve known around town for years and in any number of different capacities, is now helping pull together the publication she not only grew up with, but that you are now reading.
Behind the scenes and officially, Charles was hired as the Moody County Enterprise’s new General Manager this spring. Roger Janssen, who has been with the MCE nearly his entire adult life, is getting ready to step back from the day-to-day at the paper, stay home a bit more often with his wife, Linnea, maybe visit the grandkids in Minnesota a little more often, and otherwise keep the fishing pole a lot more handy.
He’s ready to turn over the reins, and it couldn’t come at a better time, according to Ullom. Because she’s ready for a new challenge.
Charles graduated in 2007 from Flandreau Public High School. She was President of her Senior Class, as bold then as she is now, and voted Most Likely to Never Leave Town by her classmates.
She left.
In 2011, not really knowing what she wanted to do, Charles decided that there was a big wide world out there just waiting for her to explore. She moved to Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri to help an aunt with her children. While there, she met her future husband, Jerrick. The two moved with his career to California for a time, then to Colorado. It was there that the two realized it was tough being so far from either one’s family.
“My mom has had multiple sclerosis for about 23 years and her mobility changes year to year depending on how the disease is progressing. So, we decided to come back here, be close to my parents, and start our family. We wanted them to have cousins to grow up with and my sister was here with her youngest. So yeah, we came back,” said Ullom slyly, with a smile.