26JJ-CPM_Working-Skeleton-Layout_20260406-NT - Flipbook - Page 24
“You can’t have it all. That’s just not true for
women,” she says. Not a complaint. A fact. As
her business grew and she traveled weekly
between Tampa, Destin, and Panama City
Beach, relationships became harder to sustain.
Dating while building an empire has its own
complications. And now that she has found a
rhythm that works for her, she is honest about
both the freedom and the ache.
She also carries something tender from that
season. Child-bearing losses that were deeply
personal and deeply quiet, in an era when
women were not yet encouraged to speak
openly about that kind of pain.
“Everyone already
feels bad enough,”
she says. “And then
you already feel like,
I can accomplish
everything, but I can’t
do the most normal
thing in the world.”
She has taken time
to heal. She has not
closed the door.
Adoption, she says,
is something she
thinks about often,
particularly because
of her longstanding
relationship with
the Anchorage
Kids Foundation,
where she has been
giving her time and
resources for over 20
years.
“There are so many
children that need
that,” she says.
The foundation is
not a footnote in her
story. It is threaded
throughout it.
Strong Does Not Mean Closed
There is a misunderstanding that follows women
like Joanna. People look at the independence,
the con昀椀dence, the multiple businesses and
properties, and assume she does not need
anything from anyone.
“They feel like we don’t need anyone or need
help,” she says. “But you still want the door
opened for you. You still want to be treated like a
lady. You still want to feel comfortable enough to
open that feminine side of yourself.”
It is the tension that so many accomplished
women know well. You get one side of the coin
or the other. You are either capable or soft. Never
both.
She spent years softening herself inside
relationships, dimming her light so the men
around her would feel less threatened. She
no longer does that. But she is also clear that
strength and
warmth are not
opposing forces
in her world. They
coexist. They always
have.
Patriotism in
Practice
Joanna lives in
Destin, surrounded
by the quiet
presence of Eglin
Air Force Base
and Hurlburt Field
just down the
road. She grew up
with a father who
served in Vietnam.
She understands
sacri昀椀ce in a way
that is not abstract.
She keeps it simple.
Military personnel
eat and drink free
at her bars. She
donates to the
Wounded Warrior
Project. She quotes
John F. Kennedy
with the ease of someone who actually lives by it.
“Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask
what you can do for your country. That’s my
whole mindset.”
Patriotism, for Joanna, is not performed at
holidays or announced on social media. It is the
quiet, steady act of giving more than you take. It
