Who Is Dr. Renea Skelton

Many people know me for the visible things. The degrees. The retirement. The accolades. The accomplishments. They see the polished version and assume it has always been that way.

But this is how it actually unfolded.

I did not grow up in a steady home. We moved across towns and across states, changing schools and bedrooms more times than I can clearly remember. My mom remarried several times, so there were different men in and out of our lives. Some seasons felt stable. Others did not. At the time, it felt normal because it was all I knew.

My mom was bipolar, and the emotional climate in our home could shift without warning. Some days were full of laughter. Other days tension rose quickly and exploded just as fast. I learned early how to read a room before anyone spoke. I listened for tone changes. I paid attention to silence. I also learned how to hide. I learned how to make myself smaller when that felt safer. That awareness followed me into adulthood.

I was painfully shy. I graduated high school at ninety-four pounds and was often made fun of for being quiet and underweight. I felt small in more ways than one. What most people did not see was that I was always observing. I was learning people long before I ever spoke up.

College was never really discussed in our home. There was no roadmap and no money set aside. There was surviving. I do not remember large portions of my childhood clearly. What I have are fragments and emotions attached to them. Years later, my grandmother shared truths she had kept from me to protect me. They were not small truths. They were the kind no child should have to process. Hearing them helped me understand why parts of my memory feel thin.

My younger sister remembers much more than I do. My mom shielded me from some of the harsher realities, and for years my sister would call me the "golden child" because of that protection. I did witness things, but she witnessed more. Where I learned to cope by looking away and minimizing what I saw, she stood closer to the details and carried them. That difference shaped us. It created tension at times, distance at others. We were living in the same house but surviving it in different ways.

As we grew older, I began to understand her strength differently. She was not hardened. She was honest. She remembered what I could not, or would not, remember. She held truths that were heavy and did not weaponize them. She simply carried them. That kind of strength is quiet and fierce at the same time.

When my mom passed unexpectedly at fifty-five, something shifted between us. The daily conversations I once had with my mom slowly became conversations with my sister. There was grief, but there was also reconciliation. We began speaking more openly about the past, about what we each experienced and what we each protected ourselves from. In many ways, we met each other again as adults. Even after everything, I still miss my mom. Love does not disappear simply because it was complicated.

At seventeen, I knew I wanted something different. I did not have a clear plan. I simply wanted stability. I enlisted in the United States Air Force at seventeen. In many ways, I was escaping what I knew and reaching for something I could not yet name.

I married my husband a week after I turned eighteen. We had known each other since third grade, but it was not until our senior year of high school that we truly began to see each other. We were very young. Youth gives you confidence without wisdom. The early years of our marriage were not easy. I brought into that relationship the patterns I had learned growing up. Silence when I should have spoken. Guardedness when I should have trusted. Reacting instead of responding. We had to grow up together. We had to learn how to communicate without escalating. We had to choose each other on days when choosing felt harder than walking away.

There were moments when people quietly wondered if we would make it. I understand why. We were still becoming adults while trying to build something permanent. What we have now did not happen by accident. It was built through conversations, apologies, patience, and a willingness to keep showing up. This October we will celebrate twenty-nine years of marriage. What we have today is steady because we earned it.

While we were learning how to build a marriage, military life was shaping me at the same time. I entered at seventeen searching for structure, and I found myself responsible for more than I imagined. Leadership did not arrive in a neat promotion. It came through long nights, difficult decisions, and moments when staying composed was not optional. Over time I became an officer, but that title carried weight. I lost friends. Some to war. Some to accidents. Some to struggles people never spoke about out loud. There are things I witnessed that do not leave you. There are moments your body remembers even when your mind would rather move on.

I learned how to control my face when my heart was racing. I learned how to compartmentalize because sometimes that was the only way to function. I learned discipline and responsibility in ways that stay with you long after the uniform comes off. The military strengthened me, but it also cost me. Both are true.

The military gave me structure and confidence. It also took a lot. It took time and innocence. It took pieces of me that I later had to work to reclaim.

Veterans Day is complicated for me. People thank me for my service and I am grateful, but there is also a part of me that shudders. There are memories attached to that uniform that are not celebratory. For a long time I avoided those days entirely. I did not want to stand in ceremonies or revisit what my body still remembers. I am learning to step back into those spaces slowly. To honor what that season gave me without pretending it did not cost me something. The uniform helped shape me, but it does not define me. It was a chapter of my life, not my identity.

Our three children were born into that life. They learned early that goodbye did not always mean forever, but it still meant tears. They grew up with deployments, new states, new schools, and packed boxes stacked in hallways. They learned how to walk into classrooms mid year, introduce themselves again, and find their place at lunch tables that were already claimed. They learned how to be brave when I left and steady when I returned different than when I had gone.

They watched me put on a uniform and later watched me take it off. They saw the pride and they felt the absence. They experienced birthdays moved, holidays rearranged, and phone calls that mattered more than the day itself. They also saw recovery. They saw hospital rooms. They saw strength that did not always look strong.

What amazes me most is that they did not grow hard. They grew aware. They learned empathy in real time. They became the kind of people who notice when someone else is alone. They carry resilience without arrogance and kindness without weakness. Watching them become who they are becoming is one of the greatest privileges of my life.

And now I am a "Nea Nea" to a grandson, with a granddaughter on her way. Becoming a grandmother has softened me in ways I did not expect. There is something sacred about holding the next generation and knowing the story did not end with you.

We also carry the memory of one little soul we lost. That loss reshaped me in ways I still feel. It changed how I hold my children and how I measure time.

During those years, I ran. I ran more than twenty five half marathons, one full marathon, and countless 5Ks and 10Ks. Running was my escape. It was where I processed what I did not always say out loud. It reminded me that endurance is built slowly and intentionally.

As the years went on, I pursued education in a way that would have surprised the girl who grew up without college conversations. I earned my PhD in Organizational Leadership, with emotional intelligence at the center of my work. Emotional intelligence was not simply theory for me. It had been part of my survival long before it became part of my research. I worked hard. I finished.

Shortly before retiring from the Air Force, I began teaching at the United States Air Force Academy. Standing in front of cadets felt surreal. I had gone from a shy girl in an unstable home to teaching future leaders. During my time there, I was named "Outstanding Educator of the Year." That still humbles me.

Along the way, life surprised me. I met people whose names most would recognize. I found myself in rooms I never imagined standing in. I appeared briefly in a movie trailer and in the finale of Yellowstone. You can barely see me, but I am there. It makes me smile because of the distance traveled from that little girl I once was.

I also became a Master Trainer of True Colors, one of only a few globally. It gave language to what I had lived. I became an author as well. Writing grew from reflection and from wanting to put words around experiences many people feel but struggle to articulate.

Then came the brain tumor. The first surgery did not go well. Complications followed. Eventually, Mayo Clinic took a chance on me and performed a successful surgery that saved my life. Radiation altered my pituitary gland, and I no longer produce cortisol the way I once did. My body functions differently now. I move more intentionally.

I also live with Relapsing Polychondritis, an extremely rare autoimmune disease that attacks cartilage in the body. Some days require adjustment. Strength and limitation coexist.

When I list the cool things, the doctorate, the Academy, the award, the rooms I have stood in, the marathon finish lines, it is not to impress anyone. It is also not to pretend they are small. I have come a long way. I worked for it. So yes, in a grounded way, it is a little bit of a brag. The shy girl who once hid did not stay hidden.

I am still bits and pieces of that little girl. I still notice everything in a room. I still feel deeply. The difference is that I am no longer extremely shy.

For a long time, I was the quiet one. The one who observed more than she spoke. The one who hid when hiding felt safer. Somewhere along the way, that changed. I began to use my voice because I understand what it feels like to sit in silence with questions no one is asking out loud. I speak because I know what it costs to stay small. I write because words helped me make sense of my own life. I build community because I understand how lonely strength can feel.

I did not get to choose my beginning. But I did get to choose what I would do with it. I chose to learn from my past. I chose not to repeat it. I chose to let it refine me rather than harden me.

If someone were talking about me and I happened to walk by, I would hope to overhear something simple when they ask, who is Dr. Renea Skelton. That I am real. That I am kind. That I am steady. That I am funny and that I stayed curious. And that I did not allow what I went through to make me hard.

If you see pieces of yourself in this, know that your beginning does not determine your ceiling. What you have endured does not disqualify you. It can prepare you.

You are capable.

And maybe one day I will write the full biography. For now, this is enough.

For now and always, this is me.