July 7, 2000 UNT Inhouse publication: portrait gallery - Kim Nixon: Mail by day, DJ by night

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Kim Nixon: Mail by day, DJ by night

In the month of May alone, bulk mail specialist Kim Nixon carefully weighed, priced and sorted 103,029 pieces of mail. Nixon's supervisor, Yvonne Rueter, says that Nixon is a good employee who really knows her job — a good thing, because each bulk mail piece that leaves UNT goes through Nixon.

After sorting hundreds of pounds of mail during the day, she transforms into an entertainer at night — living out her lifelong dream to be a disc jockey.

Last summer, Nixon was able to break into the DJ business while her husband, Benton, finished his UNT degree in political science.

"I have seriously wanted to be a DJ since I was 15," Nixon says. "I got my big break when a friend's father, who is a professional DJ, loaned me his equipment and let me DJ a few events. I loved it."

She saved enough money to buy her own equipment and now owns her own business, NixoNoise. Nixon entertains at parties, weddings and other special events in the Metroplex. Her business's profits will help fund travel expenses for a book that she plans to write with two other women this summer.

The coffee table book, which will be created with the help of a UNT photography alumna and a student who is majoring in English at Texas Woman's University, will explore the communities, sites and people along Interstate 35. The trio will travel the 1,568-mile-long interstate from Laredo to Duluth, Minn., photographing and writing articles about their road trip. Already, they have received tickets to shows and tourist attractions along I-35.

Her business and her upcoming book aren't Nixon's only unique projects. Before moving to Denton, she worked at West Des Moines Water Works in Iowa, where she attempted to establish the world record for most water meters read in a single day.

On April 28, 1997, Nixon read 1,103 water meters. The local media covered her effort, and one television station called the segment "Fastest Gun in West Des Moines."

Unfortunately, publishers of The Guinness Book of Records did not respond to her written request to be included in their book.

Ironically, Nixon thinks that the letter was lost in the mail.