Love of Service, Adventure Keep Zega Moving Forward

Less than a year after Kelly Zega was named to the Northwest Arkansas Business Journal’s Forty Under 40 class in 2000, she faced a mother’s worst nightmare.

In May 2001, her 6-year-old daughter, Haley, wandered off during a hiking trip in the Buffalo National Wilderness Area. A massive three-day search ended joyfully when Haley was found unharmed.

Ten years later, Zega said she still runs into people who helped in some way during that time.

“The number of people we knew who helped is staggering, but what’s more staggering to me is the number of people who we are still finding out about,” she said.

Zega and her husband, Steve, got involved with the Morgan Nick Foundation and with Team H.O.P.E., which is now under the umbrella of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

While most of Team H.O.P.E.’s cases are runaways, Kelly Zega said she feels most effective offering support to parents of lost children.

“There’s something about a parent being able to talk to another parent who has sat in that exact same place,” she said, “that just knowing you’re not crazy for the way you feel and that somebody can listen to you without judgment and impart some strength, that’s very, very empowering.”

Zega’s gifts for communicating and bringing people and resources together have formed the backbone of her career.

The assistant director of communications for the Arkansas Alumni Association when she was named to the Forty Under 40, Zega went to work later that year for the North Arkansas Symphony as director of development. After three years there, she spent another three years as an advertising manager at Tyson Foods Inc.

 “I loved my job at Tyson, and was really very interested in maintaining a career there and maybe moving into community relations and working on their hunger-relief efforts,” Zega said.

Then one day an ad for a job with Cox Communications in Springdale popped up on Monster.com.

“I just happened to get an email. I wasn’t even job-searching,” Zega said.

But the newly created position of public affairs manager brought together many functions she enjoyed, including media relations, internal communications and community involvement.

“That role has just grown,” she said, “and over time I just progressed into a director-level position.”

Zega, who recently turned 43, said she can’t imagine leaving Cox anytime soon. Her field is always evolving, especially with the growth of social media, she said.

“As long as Cox Communications is located in Northwest Arkansas, I want to be part of that party,” she said. “I love it.”

Petite and vivacious, Zega doesn’t slow down when she leaves the office. She serves on the auxiliary of Ozark Guidance, and in an advisory role with Youthbridge.

The Zega family attends Sequoyah United Methodist Church, and helps out there whenever needed.

Besides her journalism degree from the University of Arkansas, she also has a degree in political science. The Fayetteville resident got to put that education to work in 2005 when then-Gov. Mike Huckabee appointed her to a two-year stint on the Washington County Quorum Court.

While the experience gave her tremendous respect for local government leaders, Zega said she has no political aspirations.

“Right now my biggest goal is just raising a happy, self-actualized, well-adjusted girl,” she said, “and a girl who really doesn’t see any significant limitations for herself, and who understands who she is and where she fits in a larger scheme of things.”

For now, mother and daughter are keeping the home fires burning while Steve serves a second tour in Iraq as a military lawyer, or JAG. He deployed in April, and is expected home sometime between Christmas and New Year’s.

When they’re together, the family enjoys cooking — “We’re borderline foodies,” Kelly Zega admits — and traveling.

 A native of Pea Ridge, Zega grew up traveling extensively with her parents, and she wants Haley, now 16, to have the same exposure to other lands and cultures.

The Zegas have been to many European countries, Mexico and the British Isles. But Zega rapidly names places she still wants to see: Greece, Australia, India, Spain.

“There’s really not a single place you can point to on the map that I wouldn’t want to go,” she said. “I’m always up for an adventure.”