Kayla Blackwell

Kayla Blackwell was born on March 7, 1989 to Mike and Lisa Blackwell in Greenwood, South Carolina, but was raised until age 11 in Clinton, SC. At age 3 her parents separated, and a year later they divorced. Kayla was raised by her father. She learned how to bait a hook at an early age from her dad and grandfather. When Kayla was 7, her grandfather passed away from a heart attack. Her father ran a business repairing VCR's and TV's. When he had to work late he would rely his mother to take care of Kayla. When Kayla started school, her father closed his business and took a job at Sprint, later Alltel. Kayla's elementary school years were up and down until 3rd grade. She then started to settle because she wasn't changing her school every year. From 3rd to 5th grade, she went to school in Clinton. In the summer between 5th and 6th grade, her father remarried and they packed up and moved to Greenwood. She went to school in Greenwood from 6th until 12th grade and eventually graduated Greenwood High School in 2007. From there she went to Piedmont Technical College, where she realized that her calling was to be a film editor. It wasn't until her sophomore year that she was correct. Her mother notified her of movie being filmed in Greenwood. This movie was Third on a Match (2009). While working on the set of Third on a Match (2009), Kayla realized she was correct all along and thought about doing even more than editing. In 2009, she graduated Piedmont Tech with an Associate's in Arts in General Eduacation and began Lander University to work on her Bachelor's in Mass Communications. She graduated Lander in December 2011, but her road to her dreams became hard when her health became an obstacle she knew she had to overcome. She spent the next 8 years fighting a battle she hoped would win, but couldn't get the medical support needed to get the resolution she wanted. She knew there was only one option to overcome this issue - a hysterectomy. In the late winter of 2019, Kayla had her hysterectomy and she finally felt that she could chase her dreams. After recovering from surgery, she started The Resident Rulebreakers (2019) with her friend Camille Bonus. She also works as a full time Public Relations Specialist for a company in her home town to pay the bills.