Meet Your Neighbor – Kimberlie Papka

Hailey Heseltine
ECB Publishing, Inc.

Meet Kimberlie Papka, your sweet and creative neighbor. Papka is a relatively new resident of Monticello who only moved here three years ago. However, she was previously a longtime resident of Tallahassee, so this area was already familiar to her. While in search of property to keep her horses on, she found Monticello's land prices to be more reasonable than Tallahassee's, and so she decided to make the move.
Papka has an intriguing combination of professions—working in a pathology lab and training horses. She always knew that she wanted a career in the medical field, but she did not want to work with patients, so she found histology to be an appealing career path. After receiving her associate of science degree and graduating a certificate program, she began her career as a histology technician in a pathology lab in Tallahassee.
“It's a really fun job,” Papka says.
Luckily, she has not one but two jobs she finds interesting and fun. Training horses was another path she always knew she wanted to take.
“I had a horse girl phase when I was a little girl, except I never grew out of it,” she explains.
Now, she enjoys working with them as a job. She especially appreciates their varying personalities, and finds it a fun challenge to figure out how to work with them effectively and adjust her approach accordingly. When she is not training, she loves to ride her own four horses, Buster, Charlie, Chase and Miata.
Aside from working, Papka likes to read, play video games, write short stories, and make art from plastic and yarn. She also has the joy of having most her family live in neighboring cities, so they can get together often, even if it's just to share a meal or a fun outing around town.
“Everybody's really nice here,” she says. “Besides, there are a lot of cool events you don't really get in big cities.”
One of her favorite things to do around town is to go antique shopping, because “you never know what you might find.” Monticello's fun quirks and oddities like that are part of what make it such an interesting place for her to live in.
“I want to do what makes me happy, and I want to enjoy my life,” Papka expresses, and for her, Monticello life, surrounded by fun, family and furry friends, is the perfect way to do so.