'Bold' Baxter donates, volunteers and runs for First Ward council seat

By Jewels Phraner

Published April 4, 2008

Karen Baxter, 58, said she wants people to see her as innovative — she once took a wall down with nothing but an X-Acto knife and a hammer — and energetic — she works two jobs, dedicates a majority of her Saturday mornings to garage sale shopping and has an active role in helping to raise her five grandchildren.

She’s also one of four candidates running for First Ward Columbia City Council representative.

Baxter lives in a brightly colored home on Fourth Avenue. She works as a nurse, collects what she calls “treasures” to give away at one of her many free garage sales and uses any leftover time to research and study issues that plague the First Ward.

Baxter’s living room is decorated with bright, bold reds and greens punctuated with a lavender front door. As a girl, she said, she would have never imagined living in the house she lives in now, but with age, she decided she wanted the colors of her walls to match the boldness in her personality.

“I’m not afraid of anything,” Baxter said of any fears she might have if she is elected to office. “Everything is just a new learning experience.”

In addition to the colorful walls, almost all of Baxter’s living room furniture is transient.

Almost everything, she said, is subject to donation.Sometimes, she finds someone who is starting a new home and needs a couch or a loveseat.

Other times, she gives away her dish sets at her free garage sales, or she buys items such as washcloths, kitchenware and decorations knowing she will give them away.

And though she has to spend her time wisely, she said she tries to never get too busy for kindness.

“If you ever are too busy to be kind, then you really are too busy,” she said, pointing out a handwritten, homemade magnet with the same mantra. “Sometimes I have to stop and check myself, if I think ‘I really should do something, but I don’t have time,’ I have to stop myself and remember that kindness is more important than keeping a schedule.”

And though she’s been busy attending meetings and forums during her First Ward campaign and working two jobs, one as a nurse at the candlelight lodge and another owning her own cleaning company, KD Cleaning, she still made time this past Saturday to buy a trunk full of items intended for donation.

Baxter grew up in the suburbs of Chicago and moved to Columbia for the first time in 1970. In 1983, she received her licensed practical nursing degree in Mexico, Mo. After her graduation in 1984, she moved back to Columbia permanently.

She’s lived in her modest, yellow house — situated in the heart of the First Ward — longer than she’s lived in any other house, moving there in 1998.

“Everyone thought I was crazy for moving to the First Ward,” Baxter said.

In fact, she said she had to hire a new real estate agent because her original agent refused to help her find a house in the First Ward.

“I wanted to move to the First Ward to make myself more accessible to the people I was interacting with on a daily basis,” Baxter said.

At the time, she was volunteering regularly at the downtown soup kitchen Loaves and Fishes.

“I like to try new things and wanted to step out of my comfort zone,” she said.

Baxter said she didn’t think there was anyone in the First Ward that can’t identify with her in some way or another, with her experiences taking her on both sides of the spectrum in issues like crime, employment and health care.

“I think that’s what makes me really different than the other candidates,” she said. “For example, I’ve worked at State Farm and had outstanding insurance benefits. I have also for a number of years have had no health insurance, and I understand what that’s like too.”

Though she’s had a plethora of diverse experiences during her lifetime, the most defining moment in her life was the death of her younger sister just over a year ago.

“Other than just the shock of it, was the realization that you do not know how many days you have,” she said, her eyes brimming with tears from the memory. “It made me realize if I wanted to do anything, I better do it now.”

Baxter cited this carpe-diem outlook as one of the reasons she wanted to run for City Council representative this time, even though she had thought of running for the position in the past.

“I live in ward one now, I care about ward one now, I should do what I can for the First Ward now,” she said.