Click here to View PDF Ace Power Couple Ben Self and Becca Self ACE Weekly February 11, 2010
Lexington native and MIT grad Becca Self was already included as a “This Year’s Model” in Ace’s 2009 year-end edition. Rona Roberts wrote in that issue, “She’s a 30-year-old brilliant scientist. She’s a native Lexingtonian who says she never considered NOT settling in Lexington as an adult. She’s just finishing her first year as Seedleaf’s first education director, which means she invents fascinating and delightful ways to explain photosynthesis to preschoolers and thinks it is great fun to demonstrate safe tomato canning to their elders. After MIT, Becca began teaching science, first at the high school level, then at the Montessori Middle School of Kentucky. Engaging middle schoolers in real work on real land brought so much natural success that Becca became convinced her life work includes opening similar landbased learning opportunities to children and adults in the larger community. Now Becca teaches and inspires a multigenerational community of people all around the city in neighborhoods and schools where Seedleaf supports productive gardens and orchards. Becca Self is showing all of us in Lexington how to become healthier and more able to produce, cook, and preserve our own food.”
Anyone interested in politics knows Becca’s husband — fellow Lexington native and fellow MIT grad—Ben Self, a cofounder of Blue State Digital, the company instrumental in transforming the digital landscape of the last presidential election, and now busy creating online communities all over the world. He told Ace in a 2009 Bluegrass Digerati story, returning home to Lexington was important to the two of them. He said, “I love Lexington. Besides the fact that I’m obviously biased because I grew up here, I love the people, the beauty, and all of the unique things that makes Lexington different from all other similar-sized cities. Lexington is extremely fortunate in that manner — because of our environment, the horse industry, and UK, we’ve got a lot advantages over other mid-sized cities. That’s why Rebecca and I looked for the first opportunity to move back home.”
