When Memphis native Ashley Harper graduated from Central High School and left town, it was for the mountains.

First, for Fort Collins and Colorado State University nestled in the Rocky Mountains where she majored in English and entertained lofty plans of working with metaphors, imagery and language.

Upon her return to Memphis, she did just that working for Burke’s Bookstore for seven years.

When she left Memphis a second time, Harper once again found herself atop a mountain. This time, though, it was Machu Picchu. She, husband, Dan, and their two small children, Flannery and Gus, 5 and 1 at time, respectively, moved to Lima, Peru, in 2000. The couple taught English at a private bilingual school.

She describes the experience of living in a foreign country as “excellent” and “phenomenal.”

“We miss it every day,” she says and would recommend such an adventure to anyone who has the opportunity. “I’m not a traveler, I’ve never done much traveling, but being somewhere and learning to fit in, that’s what I like.”

Back in Memphis in 2004, Harper volunteered at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital as an interpreter. Responsibility loomed and the need for paying work led her to Hands On Memphis where she was the “last man standing” before that entity’s merger with Volunteer Memphis … (read more)

As supervising attorney over both the Judge’s Action Center and the Office of Advocate for Noncustodial Parents at Memphis-Shelby County Juvenile Court, Tom Coupé works to ensure that the most vulnerable members of society are being fairly and equally represented.

“The Judge’s Action Center started as an outreach to the public to assist them with any questions or concerns they have about the court,” Coupé said.

The Memphis native graduated from the University of Memphis in 1995 with a Bachelor of Arts in political science. After graduating, he worked in the restaurant industry at varying capacities, saying, “While I enjoyed it, it wasn’t a good long-term plan for me.”

At the age of 29, he re-evaluated his goals and left town for the first time with a scholarship to the Southern Illinois School of Law. While in school, he planned to join the district attorney’s office and become a prosecutor, but a lack of opportunity at the time led him instead to the Shelby County Department of Children Services in 2004, where he began his legal career.

“I just kind of fell into that line of work,” Coupé said. “I never thought I was going to be a child welfare attorney, but here it is 10 years later and I’m certified as a child welfare law specialist and this is what I do and this is what I love.”

From Shelby County, he moved to Middle Tennessee to work with the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services in Williamson County. The Judge’s Action Center was put into place in 2007, the year Coupé first began working with Juvenile Court. Prior to that he had traveled around the state as a court improvement attorney with the Administrative Office of Courts, training judges, lawyers and court personnel on best practices in child welfare law … (read more)