As a political science major at Southwestern, Kay Webb Mayfield '78 always knew she wanted to work in the Foreign Service. "Being a diplomat, representing my country, seemed like one of the best jobs in the world," she says.

Since 1986, she and husband Mark Mayfield '76 have worked in Venezuela, Honduras, Taiwan and now Guatemala. As deputy consul general, Mark helps American citizens overseas and issues visas to foreign nationals who want to visit or live in the U.S. "The great challenge for our officers is to develop an understanding of the country, its culture and its economy, so we can make fair decisions."

Mark's work has included helping Americans deal with disasters in foreign countries. He's been involved in embassy responses to two major airline crashes, political upheaval in Nigeria and last year's devastating earthquake in Taiwan. He says, "Being on hand to offer help to U.S. citizens who are dealing with terrible circumstances is the most rewarding thing I've done professionally." Mark received the department's Meritorious Honor Award for his work in Honduras and Superior Honor Awards for his efforts in Nigeria and Taiwan.

As information officer and spokesperson for the U.S. Embassy, Kay arranges media interviews with the ambassador and other embassy officials, writes speeches, issues press releases and oversees the embassy web site. "We also organize programs to provide information about the United States to influential audiences in Guatemala — deditorial writers, academics and government officials." In 1999, Kay received the United States Information Agency Director's Award for Writing in Public Affairs, primarily for her speechwriting.

Before the Foreign Service, Kay worked as a journalist and a teacher in Texas, Venezuela and Honduras. It was in Honduras that she became the founding managing editor of the country's first English-language newspaper.

"Adapting to new cultures while representing the United States makes us think about a lot of issues," says Kay, "such as how the U.S. is perceived, how to represent an 'American' point of view when our country is so incredibly diverse and how to work in partnership with the host country."

The Mayfields have had to be flexible in working with the Foreign Service personnel system in order to find posts within the same embassy. Kay says, "Obviously you can't be in a situation where one spouse supervises the other, but since we have different specialties — consular and public diplomacy — that's unlikely to happen." The two have only been separated for a total of four months: when Mark left Taipei for Guatemala, while Kay and their children stayed to finish her tour and the school year.

So how has it been living abroad all these years? "Each post has had its own strange and exciting experiences," says Mark. "We've traveled to Contra camps on the Honduras-Nicaragua border. We were dropped in an Indian village in the Sierra de Perija because the helicopters were overloaded and told, ‘Don't worry, they don't take heads anymore. We'll be back in a couple of hours.’ Also, a Nobel laureate once threatened to beat me up."

Kay agrees. "We have pretty strange medical histories. We've taken anti-malaria drugs that shoot short-term memory full of holes, and we have experience with things like scorpion stings, tumba flies and parasites you don't even want to know about."

The Mayfields will serve in Guatemala for three years and say they'll then look for an assignment in Washington, D.C., so their children can graduate from high school in the United States.

"We try to keep an open mind about where the next overseas assignment may be," says Kay. "Someday we expect to retire in Central Texas."

Kay Webb Mayfield earned a B.S. in political science from SU in 1978 and an M.A. in journalism from UT-Austin in 1984. Mark Mayfield earned a B.A. in history and Spanish from SU in 1976 and a J.D. from UT School of Law in 1980. The couple married in Lois Perkins Chapel on May 24, 1980. They have three sons, Travis, Andrew and Thomas, who are 13-year-old triplets.

-Greg Holland