Meet the Writer: Natalie Platt

Natalie Platt

Writer / Natalie Platt
Photography Provided

I don’t claim to know many things about life, or to be sure about many things, but I do know two of the main reasons I’ve always loved writing.

My mother, Susan Platt, had a very long and successful career as a seventh-grade English teacher at Lewis Cass High School. I remember “helping” her grade spelling tests when I was in elementary school, unknowingly setting the foundation for my love of words. As the years went on, we would sit in the living room, she in one armchair and I in the other, running through nouns, prepositions and my upcoming vocabulary test. And then I got older, and I vividly remember rolling my eyes when she, my mother, who taught for nearly 30 years, corrected my spelling or use of a word (how dare she).

But I smile now, thankful for those moments and realizing all of the corrections only made me better – and smarter- and I am so appreciative. And if you had Mrs. Platt as your seventh-grade English teacher, I know you’d agree.

My other point of inspiration came from my third-grade teacher at Thompson Elementary, Mrs. Boe. We kept a journal throughout the year, except I had journals. Plural. I wrote and wrote and wrote, each time with encouraging feedback from her at the end of each entry, complete with a smiley face in handwriting I could instantly still recognize today. Mrs. Boe was so encouraging and kind, and made me feel like the best third-grade writer there ever was – and she also kickstarted my love for reading. I can’t thank her enough for both of those passions.

While I didn’t become a full-time journalist, I am the director of marketing for Veritas Realty, a commercial real estate company in Indianapolis. I graduated from Lewis Cass High School in 2006 and Indiana University in 2010, with a degree in journalism. Then I moved to Chicago for nine years where I worked for the Chicago Bears and a TV network on the advertising side, before moving to Indy in 2021.

So what spurred me to get back into writing on the side? I have a bit of an entrepreneurial spirit in me that I can never suppress, and freelance writing is a way to fulfill that. I received that drive from my father, Mike Platt, who built a successful insurance company (Jim Kitchell Insurance Agency) and was a talented athlete.

When you hear the last name Platt in Kokomo, you think of basketball. My father joined his father, Joe Platt, as a member of the Howard County Sports Hall of Fame by way of being a star basketball and baseball player for the Haworth Huskies in the early ‘70s. He will gently remind you that he was a better baseball player than basketball player (true), as Indiana’s favorite pastime often overshadows his success on the diamond. He went on to play at the University of Evansville where he was a three-year starter for the basketball team, played in 109 of 110 games, and was a two-time all-Indiana Collegiate Conference selection.

And for his baseball career? Well, he was a three-time all-conference selection and team MVP as a senior, before returning as Evansville’s head baseball coach for one season after graduation.

My late grandfather, Joe Platt, played basketball and baseball at Young America High School before becoming a three-year varsity player at IU, where he won a Big 10 title in 1936 and captained the Hoosiers team in 1938. He went on to coach at Winamac High School, Bunker Hill Naval Air Station and Carleton College, before returning to Indiana for a 14-year coaching career at Kokomo High School, winning the 1961 state championship. My grandpa Platt is a member of the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame as well as the Howard County Sports Hall of Fame.

The past year or so of consistently writing again has been such a great outlet for me, and I am thankful for my parents and Mrs. Boe for giving me the drive and inspiration to continue a passion I’ve always had, as a child and as an adult.