Janet Mendenhall is married to Doug Mendenhall and is the mother of five beautiful children; four sons and one daughter. She moved to Abilene in the summer of 2008, for her husband to begin a career as a college professor at Abilene Christian University, where he teaches journalism. Both she and Doug are graduates of ACU and are happy to be back on that campus and in this community. Janet graduated with a degree in Secondary Education with a teaching emphasis in Biology and Life/Earth Science.
In her former life, Janet was a revenue officer for the Internal Revenue Service. Most recently she was the office administrator for Christian Homes & Family Services in Abilene. In between she worked on raising her five children; Jake, Hart, Brooks, Cade and Hailey Grace, teaching preschool and volunteering for a number of organizations.
For Janet it was love at first sight with CCC. One newspaper article led to one phone call and that led to one tour and she was sold on its principles and mission. Never dreaming she would ever be employed by CCC, she and her family through a variety of media began hearing and listening to the call to relocate in a vulnerable neighborhood. Their house was placed on the market and the wait for just where that should be began. Then she was offered the job of a lifetime: a community coordinator with Connecting Caring Communities in the Valley View neighborhood to ultimately lead to a move into a Friendship House sponsored by First Baptist Church. And she couldn’t be any happier. And she couldn’t feel any more at home.