Tallahassee Pickleball Association

TPA News

May 2024 Member Spotlight: Kathryn Dawn Conopio-Mapp

The Tallahassee Pickleball Association (TPA) has initiated a new Member Spotlight that will appear monthly. We will select a different TPA member each month to be interviewed for this feature. For participating in the interview, the member will receive a free TPA hat or visor. Our first featured TPA member is Kathryn Mapp who goes by the nickname Kian.

Kian works as an Academic Program Specialist in the Center for Exploratory Students at FSU. Her key responsibility is to help students identify, discover, and connect their interests, values, and skill set to a major. She enjoys helping students find a pathway for their professional careers. She also has interested many of the students in playing pickleball. (Now we know why Tom Brown is always so crowded!!)

Kian officially began playing pickleball last January. She and her husband, Kenny (pictured above), agreed on taking up pickleball to hold each other accountable for staying active and to boost their overall health. They committed to play once a week, but that didn’t last long. Now they play 3 or 4 times a week, typically at Four Oaks, Tom Brown, or Jack McLean. One of Kian’s goals is to beat her husband in a singles’ match, but that hasn’t happened - at least not yet!

What attracts Kian the most to the sport is the pickleball community. She likes being active with groups of people of all ages and genders who have the same love for pickleball. During open play she’s out there for fun, but when playing for tournaments --- “it is win time”. And that she does! She and her husband placed first in the October 2023 Fall Brawl hosted by the City of Tallahassee.

Read more in the May 5 Newsletter