Creating a Legacy: Lifelong County Resident Focuses on Giving Back

Lifelong county resident Rebecca Barnes has made it her mission to remind residents of all the good things about Prince William County - both day and night.

During the day, she’s the president of Prince William Living, a lifestyle magazine geared toward getting readers to stay in the county.

“Our mission is to let people know all the positive things to do in PWC and Manassas,” she said. “People don’t need to go to Tysons to shop. They don’t need to go to the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. We have all those things in PWC and Manassas and Manassas Park.”

Barnes primarily heads up the business side of the magazine, while her partner serves as the publisher and editor.

“I was talking with one of my friends, and he said, ‘This job is absolutely custom-made for you. In what job can you talk up the positives of your county and get paid to do it?’” she said. “We don’t have to talk about the bad things. I get to talk to a lot of people; I get to meet a lot of new people.”

The magazine’s first issue was published in January of this year, after Barnes’ partner came to her last August with the idea for a lifestyle magazine.

“September of 2010 is when we formed everything,” Barnes said. “Within two weeks of the meeting, we had our incorporation set up. Within a month, we had our first advertisers. We didn’t eve have a prototype in hand until October, so we really had to be able to explain to people what we were doing and who we were trying to reach.”

The economy has brought its challenges to the start-up.

“This is not the best economy that we’ve ever had,” Barnes said. “If you can do what people say is impossible in a bad economy, then imagine what could happen when the economy grows and becomes stronger. If we can encourage people to spend their money in the Prince William area, the more people who spend their money in the Prince William area, the better for Prince William.”

Some people have told her that print is a dead media.

“I said, ‘When instant coffee came out, did coffee disappear?’” Barnes said. “The magazine is not dead. I can look at magazines online, too, but something about having it in your hand is different.”

Prince William Living comes in both a print and an online edition.

On nights and weekends, Barnes switches hats as she manages public relations for the Occoquan-Woodbridge-Lorton Volunteer Fire Department.

Barnes has had a soft spot for OWL VFD ever since she was a team trainer through high school for the Gar-Field High School football team.

“I did pretty much anything I was asked,” Barnes recalled. “That four year experience set a background for my life. Anyone who’s been in organized sports, especially in school - it’s a unique experience. I was part of the team.”

During that time, she got to know the immediate past OWL chief, who at the time was assistant chief.

“He went to all of the games and stopped by most of the practices,” she said. “I was learning from him in a positive way.”

She formed many other friendships in the fire department. Looking back, she’s surprised that she didn’t join OWL much sooner.

“It would have made a lot of sense for me to head down that road a lot earlier, but I didn’t,” she said.

But she never lost her ties to the department, and their act of service to the community still tugged on her heart.

Barnes studied at George Mason, got married, and began to work for the Marine Corps as a contractor on base at Quantico.

After a couple years, Barnes said she “lost her mind” and went into business for herself. She opened up a packaging and shipping store in Montclair. Since then, she’s moved on to other ventures.

“I joke that I build businesses and then I sell them,” she said.

Though Barnes has been involved with OWL on an informal level for several years, she joined OWL officially about a year and a half ago, when she began working as the Public Relations Specialist. Her role is a little different from the typical role of the Public Information Officer. She doesn’t just provide incident reports. Instead, she promotes awareness what OWL VFD is, and just how vital its role is.

But public relations for OWL doesn’t stop with her.

“Everyone who is a member is part of that PR,” she said. “When they’re out in the community and someone says,’Hey, you’re a volunteer firefighter,’ their response to that makes the difference between possibly getting a new member, getting a donation, or just the perception and understanding of fire and rescue as a whole.”

She’s realized that the skills that help her in this role are the skills that she learned back in high school with the football team.

“The experience in football really helped me because it helped me to manage personalities,” she said. “To pull people together for a team goal, to be able to find common ground with someone - you don’t have to surround yourself with people who think exactly the way you do, because that doesn’t teach you anything. By surrounding yourself with people of different opinions who still respect your opinions, you can achieve anything.”  

Barnes stresses that it’s important to understand the differences between volunteer and career fire and rescue workers. In addition to the obvious difference of volunteering versus pay, volunteers work nights, weekends and holidays. In addition, careers cannot volunteer in the same area where they are careers. No PWC fire and rescue workers are also OWL volunteers, for example.

Barnes has a great deal of respect for anyone who works in emergency fields, whether volunteer or career.

“First responders as a whole - they’re our first line of security as a nation,” she said. “For those that serve, the work that they put in, the time that they dedicate - it truly is for love, not money. If we train someone and they end up going career instead of volunteer, that’s OK. It’s for the greater good.”

Barnes wants to be an act that future OWL Public Relations Specialists can follow.

“As long as [OWL] needs me, I’m there,” she said. “But I want to leave a blueprint. For me, success would be creating something that someone else can follow. If I’m creating any kind of legacy for myself, I would say that service is best. When people think of me, I want them to say, ‘She cared. She gave.’”