Local author Natalie Replogle talks with a group of sophomore high school girls during the N.E.W. Workshop. Replogle was the keynote speaker at the workshop.

SYRACUSE — One who has personally experienced failure, struggles and discouragement, but did not quit, is better suited to encourage others to stay focused and not give up. Natalie Replogle has experienced those disappointments and shared some of her personal story as the keynote speaker in the annual Nontraditional Employment for Women Workshop Thursday, Nov. 2, at the Quaker Haven Camp Activities Center near Syracuse.

The workshop, with this year’s theme of “Writing Your Own Story,” was to encourage high school sophomore girls to explore careers traditionally dominated by males. Students from Wawasee, Fairfield, West Noble, Warsaw, Tippecanoe Valley and Whitko high schools, as well as home-schooled students, participated in the workshop.

Replogle, a graduate of Fairfield High School, is now an accomplished author and the women’s ministry director of Grace Community Church in Goshen. She is married to Greg Replogle, a pilot, and they have three children.

After a fun icebreaker time of physical activities after which two students earned Starbucks gift cards, Natalie shared some of her personal struggles including dealing with extreme sleep disorders of her second child, who later nearly died of Kawasaki disease.

She noted she needed an outlet of some type and found it in the form of writing. But it did not come easily and Replogle admitted she really struggled with English and grammar at first.

The road to writing was paved with trying several things including working in a doctor’s office, being a secretary twice, a chiropractic assistant, two years of college studying business and six months as a missionary in Ecuador, where, ironically, she taught English to kindergartners. “I really had no clue what I wanted to do when I was growing up,” she said.

Eventually Replogle developed a desire to write a book. She found an editor to read her manuscript, but was told it could not be edited and “you need to learn how to write fiction.” She cried about it for three days, but decided she was going to press on. “I felt a stirring in my heart that I wanted to write a book,” she said.

She decided to teach herself how to write and thoroughly researched it. After writing another manuscript, she tried to find someone to publish it for at least one year but was rejected numerous times. “I decided to try it one more time,” she said, and found a small publishing company in Michigan willing to publish her manuscript.

Her first book, one of a series of four books, was published in August 2013. “A Rescued Heart,” and “A Rescued Hope” are among the books she has written.

Replogle encouraged the students to look at failure as something positive. “It (failure) made me a better writer and a better person,” she said.

Most rewarding to her was “seeing my hard work pay off because nothing came easy to me.”

“Don’t let someone else’s no be your no,” she challenged the students. She noted “you will fail, it is inevitable.”

She also exhorted the students to not let circumstances “hold you back” and to think positive, work hard and stay focused. “You were created to do something and the world needs you doing that,” she emphasized.

Each student was able to visit five different tables during the workshop to talk with among more than 40 different women working in traditionally male dominated careers including engineering, firefighting, truck driving and more.

The workshop was sponsored by Pathways (formerly the Wawasee Area Career and Technical Cooperative) and the Warsaw Area Career Center.