Ashland Breakfast Kiwanis Club Mother of the Year

By MARK MAYNARD - The Independent

ASHLAND May 10, 2008 11:47 pm

— Julie Hudson was moved beyond words over the words her daughter, Sarah, wrote about her.
So Mom just cried.
Sarah Hudson’s essay was chosen as the winner in the Ashland Breakfast Kiwanis Club’s annual Mother of the Year competition. Mother and daughter shared the award earlier this week with the Kiwanians at J&J’s Restaurant.
“I knew they had written the essays in their English class to submit them (to the Kiwanis Club),” Julie Hudson said. “Mr. (Jay) Hutchinson (of the Kiwanis Club) called the house to tell us Sarah’s essay won. I cried. To have a 13-year-old kid say such sweet things, well, it was kind of overwhelming.”
In her essay, Sarah said her mother wasn’t a super hero but she did things to make life better for their family. Julie and her husband, Mike, also have another daughter, 7-year-old Ashley.
Sarah, a seventh-grader at Verity Middle School, wrote in her essay, “I realize now that it’s not her job to constantly cook and clean for my family, but she chooses to because she loves us. Sometimes I don’t think we love her enough, or at least show it enough.”
You could tell Sarah was proud of her mother, who is a CPA for Appalachian Fuels.
“Everything she does for me, I can’t express that through words,” Sarah said. “She puts aside everything for us.”
Julie confesses she has some help, not only from her husband, who is a Huntington police officer, but also from the grandparents — Bill and Dana Waller and Dan and Mary Hudson.
“They do as much of the shuttling as we do,” Mike said.
“I still get tons of help from my mom,” Julie said. “Kids don’t come with manuals; they come with grandparents.”
Julie and her husband Mike were high school sweethearts at Fairview in the late 1980s. They married in 1992. In Sarah’s essay, she wrote about her mother being the prom queen, a track star and a varsity cheerleader.
“We had our 20-year high school reunion and had the yearbooks and pictures out,” Julie said.
Sarah plays soccer practically year-round and was a starter on Verity’s team this spring. Younger sister Ashley is also starting soccer.
The Hudsons do a lot as a family, including camping and skiing.
Sarah said she was proud the essay won, not so much for the grade but for her mother.
“I kind of hoped it would (win),” she said. “Everybody had to do it but not everybody tried their best. I tried to do the best I could. I figured there was tons of great writers.”

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