Julia Segars

Julia Harwell Segars is a 1984 magna cum laude graduate of the University of Alabama, with a Bachelor of Arts degree in journalism and a minor in graphic design.

She began writing Aunt Sister columns anonymously for the Talladega Daily Home in 2016 as a soft launch into her second career, and the Alabama Press Association found her work worthy of a first-place award for humor columns in its 2017 Better Newspapers Contest.

Released in October 2017, Aunt Sister the book is a collection of 40 of her columns, some previously published and some written expressly for the book.

Julia’s early career included two years as a news reporter before joining Alabama Power as a writer in 1986. She later served as manager of Employee Communication and went on to leadership positions in other departments before her election by the company’s board of directors in 2002 as vice president and regional chief information officer. She spent the last 11 years of her corporate career as Eastern Division vice president, over customer service operations in 12 counties in East Alabama.

Julia has served as chairman of the Calhoun County Chamber of Commerce, vice-chairman of the Calhoun County Economic Development Council, and co-founding chairman of Core 4, a regional organization that supports development of the I-20 corridor in St. Clair, Talladega, Calhoun and Cleburne counties.

A 2016 graduate of Leadership Alabama, Julia is past president of UA’s Capstone Communication Society and has served on the boards of the Jacksonville State University Foundation and the Alabama Institute for the Deaf and Blind Foundation. She is a member of Calhoun County’s Women’s Executive Network and Etowah County’s First Friday Forum for executive women.

She is a graduate of the International Women’s Forum Leadership Foundation Fellows program and Momentum, a statewide development program for women leaders. She has served on the Alabama Women’s Commission and as a director of the Girl Scouts of North-Central Alabama. She received the Girl Scouts’ Frances E. Couch Lifetime Achievement Award in 2012 and the Boy Scouts of America Greater Alabama Council’s Heart of an Eagle Award in 2016 in recognition of her community service.

In 2008, she led a creative team in the production of the book Dear Dani ©, a collection of advice letters from 56 prominent women in East Alabama to the next generation. Profits from sales of Dear Dani provided scholarships to area female college students in a state-wide leadership development program tailored for them.

After 31 years in corporate life, Julia retired in July 2017 to return her focus to writing and other creative pursuits as owner of Segars Creative, LLC. She and her husband, Frank, reside in Anniston. They have four children, four grandchildren and three dogs

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