{"id":387721,"date":"2026-09-02T00:38:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-02T00:38:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/387721\/"},"modified":"2026-09-02T00:38:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-02T00:38:10","slug":"local-folks-katie-bauman-resident-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/387721\/","title":{"rendered":"Local Folks: Katie Bauman \u2013 Resident News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Every year on Jan. 1, Katie Bauman\u2019s family \u2013 parents, sibling, cousins, aunts and uncles \u2013 gather at the Avondale home of the family matriarch, Sarah Van Cleve, to set their resolutions for the coming year. Those resolutions are then kept under lock and key by \u201cMimi,\u201d as Sarah is affectionately called.<\/p>\n

Among her resolutions for 2026, Katie plans to host family gatherings at her house near Boone Park, learn how to surf, and read more non-fiction books. Now, more than halfway through the year, she realizes with a laugh that she hasn\u2019t surfed once this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou reminded her,\u201d Sarah \u2013 Mimi \u2013 told me as we sit around a table in her riverfront Avondale home, laughing.<\/p>\n

Tradition runs deep for Katie and her family. Indeed, Mimi has handwritten New Year\u2019s resolutions dating back to 1930 tucked away with the more recent ones. At Christmastime, the mantle has passed to Katie to make the family\u2019s time-honored taffy, using a recipe passed down from her grandfather\u2019s side. Throughout the year, Mimi also hosts weekly Sunday dinners, and anyone who can make it attends this family tradition.<\/p>\n

These and other traditions are ones Katie is happy to partake in since she returned to her hometown of Jacksonville two years ago after spending time in Washington, D.C., and Atlanta.<\/p>\n

Born and raised in Jacksonville, she\u2019s always loved the Bold City. Indeed, when she lived out of state, and it was time for her to determine where she wanted to settle down, Jacksonville was the benchmark against which she measured the other possibilities, and, in the end, Jacksonville won out.<\/p>\n

\"KatieKatie and her family are long-standing Jaguars fans.<\/p>\n

Rediscovering a city she once knew backward and forward has been an enjoyable experience for her upon returning to her roots.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo come back and be able to discover new things about a city that I felt I knew like the back of my hand, and there\u2019s nothing else that could surprise me about it, has been wonderful,\u201d Katie said. \u201cI really appreciate that, seeing it with new eyes, meeting new people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Growing up, her love of all the natural beauty of her hometown flourished into a passion for protecting and preserving the environment.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn middle school, my science project was testing water quality in the creeks and in the St. Johns River,\u201d Katie recalled. \u201cOne uncle helped me do the science side of it with the testing because he\u2019s a vet, and then another uncle took me out on the boat so I could collect samples.\u201d<\/p>\n

Today, Katie has channeled that passion into a career serving as Florida policy manager with the Surfrider Foundation, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting and preserving the world\u2019s oceans and beaches. Getting to a job she loves in a community she loves is especially rewarding.<\/p>\n

\"Katie\u2019sKatie\u2019s work with the Surfrider Foundation often takes her to the State Capitol in Tallahassee.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think Jacksonville is like a big town with a small-town mentality, but there are so many new people here because people have seen how wonderful it is to be in Jacksonville and then, to zoom in on Avondale and Riverside, what a great community this is,\u201d Katie said.<\/p>\n

While her job often takes her to places throughout the state and across the country, Katie enjoys the simple pleasures of being home: playing pickleball with friends or family; stopping by Whit\u2019s Frozen Custard of Avondale \u2013 the flavor of the day is \u201cCookie Monster,\u201d she informs me. Taking her husky-German shepherd mix out for walks along the various trails Jacksonville boasts, or reading books \u2013 including a few nonfiction titles before next January\u2019s review of her 2026 resolutions.<\/p>\n

\"Whit\u2019sWhit\u2019s Frozen Custard of Avondale is a favorite spot for Katie and her family.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Every year on Jan. 1, Katie Bauman\u2019s family \u2013 parents, sibling, cousins, aunts and uncles \u2013 gather at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":387722,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[116,118,117],"class_list":["post-387721","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387721","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=387721"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387721\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/387722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=387721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=387721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=387721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}