Kara Weber isn’t just a Newton Community High School graduate from the Class of 1995. She’s a fourth-generation Jasper County local whose family ties to the area stretch back more than a century—and whose own children represent the fifth. “My great-grandparents were here,” she explains, “my parents went to school here, I did, and now my kids have, too.” Six of her seven children have already graduated from Newton Community High School, with one still to go.

That kind of continuity is more than just a footnote. It’s a philosophy.

“I have friends in cities like Indianapolis,” she says. “When I told one of them we chose to live here, he was surprised. But that’s just it—we chose this. We didn’t have to stay. We wanted to.”

Kara and her husband—a Newton graduate himself—briefly left the region for college, attending Kentucky Wesleyan before returning to Jasper County to raise their children. Her husband is a full-time farmer. Kara, meanwhile, is the owner of a local accounting firm, a business she worked her way toward steadily and deliberately over the course of many years.

“I started at a bank right out of college,” she says. “Then I moved into private accounting, then public. Eventually I was able to buy the practice I own now.” When she purchased the firm, she acquired not just a book of business and real estate, but also a team. She now manages five year-round employees and adds seasonal help during the height of tax season. The business handles taxes, payroll, and bookkeeping for local individuals and small businesses—many of whom are in agriculture.

“We work with a lot of farmers,” Kara says. “And what I love is being able to help them plan—not just fix things after the fact. People will drop by and say, ‘What if I sold this part of my business?’ or ‘What happens if I change my entity structure?’ I want us to be the kind of partner that helps people make good decisions on the front end.”

That sense of partnership runs deep in Kara’s life. It’s not just how she approaches her work. It’s how she and her husband have raised their children—on principles of work ethic, kindness, and shared responsibility. “My parents were both teachers,” she notes. “My mom taught younger elementary, and my dad was a junior high math teacher. So we had a strong value on education and family from the start.”

Kara’s own spark for accounting was lit in high school thanks to a teacher named Jerry Denoyer. “He made accounting click for me,” she recalls. “I liked knowing there was a right answer. With chemistry, you could be close. But with accounting? You could be right.” That love of exactitude served her well, especially as she managed both a growing business and a busy household.

“Running a firm with seven kids is no small thing,” she admits, “especially during tax season. But I’ve got a good husband. We’ve always been a team.”

Their children—Emma, Seth, Logan, Eli, Luke, Elias, and Maura—have all benefitted from the quiet strengths of the Newton community. “Kids here get a chance to grow into themselves,” Kara explains. “They’re not constantly competing or being pushed to specialize early. They can just be kids. And there’s a whole community behind them, cheering them on.”

That community showed its strength in the most profound way in 2021, when Kara’s son Seth was diagnosed with T-cell lymphoblastic lymphoma. He was a college student at the University of Alabama at the time. Treatment took place at UAB Hospital in Birmingham, but the prayers and support came flooding in from Newton.

“They held a prayer service here. They sent a huge banner signed by people from the community,” Kara says. “We hung it in Seth’s hospital room. The social worker looked at it and said, ‘That’s a lot of people.’ And it was.”

Seth recovered. He rang the bell. But the experience left a deep imprint. “It was humbling,” Kara says, her voice catching for just a moment. “You want to be the one giving the help, not the one needing it. But I learned how powerful it is to accept support—to be blessed, not just to bless.”

That humility echoes through every part of Kara’s story. It’s there in the way she built her career—slowly, deliberately, without shortcuts. It’s there in her commitment to family and the way she has balanced ambition with deep roots. And it’s there in her quiet reflections about life’s uncertainties.

“If I could talk to my younger self,” she says, “I’d say: be patient. Keep going. Even if it’s not the job you thought you’d have, just start. Because every step forward matters.”

Kara is proof of that. Every rung on her ladder—every bank job, every tax season, every night spent up late balancing work and parenting—has added up to something meaningful. Something rooted.

When asked how she’d explain her love for Newton to someone on the outside, Kara doesn’t hesitate. “This is where you come to raise your kids,” she says. “Because this is where the community helps you do it. And when the time comes, they carry you.”

That’s more than a sentiment. It’s a lived truth. And for Kara Weber, there’s no spreadsheet that could capture it better.