Member Profile: Meet Debbie Simon and Jay Johnson

Debi and Jay Simon with Samson

Meet Debi Simon and Jay Johnson

A profile by Annie Hoyer

             Debbie grew up in Queens, where her parents had moved from the Lower East Side of New York City. She’s a writer and editor who attended Queens College and graduated from American University in Washington, D.C. Her work has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Seventeen Magazine, Adweek, Reuters, The Miami Herald, The Hartford Courant and The Financial Times.

            The members of Debbie’s family have always been an entrepreneurial lot, going back to her Grandpa Simon’s horse-and-wagon moving company. So, selling ads by day, writing articles by night, in the late 1980s she launched Lean Times, a local health and fitness magazine. After five years, she sold the publication and turned the proceeds into a lifelong dream – a 1-1/2-year backpacking trip around the world for two.
            Debbie and Jay were sleeping under a mosquito net in the South Pacific island of Tonga when the idea for Carolina Woman hit her. In 1993, they launched the lifestyle magazine in the Raleigh-Durham region of North Carolina. Due to Covid and the challenging environment for print publications, the last paper edition of Carolina Woman came out in March 2020.

            When Carolina Woman went digital, the couple decided they could handle the online magazine and its associated social media from anywhere. They had family in Maine, so they toured the New England states. They fell in love with New Hampshire. A realtor helped them locate a home in Easton only two hours away from their relatives. 

            Debbie’s interests include traveling (39 countries and all 50 states as well as Route 66), swimming, the performing arts, pets (especially her dog, Samson), reading and spending time with her extended family. Debbie was a long-time member of the board of her previous synagogue, Judea Reform Congregation in Durham, N.C.

        Jay grew up in Durham, where his parents had moved from West Virginia. He has fond memories of running into his grandmother’s rural home after a five-hour car ride, knowing made-from-scratch cornbread would be waiting on the stove.

        Decades after a stint at Louisburg College in North Carolina, Jay returned to an institution of higher education to receive an associate’s degree in culinary arts. In between, he led the second generation of his family’s fraternity-sorority business, providing Balfour rings and other Greek products to college students up and down the East Coast. Since he and Debbie co-founded Carolina Woman magazine he has served as its advertising director and food editor.

        In addition to cooking, Jay has a wide range of interests including traveling, film and television, scuba diving and other sports, and ceramics and other art. A lot of his volunteer time was devoted to the couple’s previous synagogue in Durham, and critters at the animal shelter there. And he loves his Xbox.

        So how did a young woman from Queens and a guy from North Carolina meet? In 1985, Debbie traveled to Durham to visit her sister, a student at Duke. Jay and this sister had become friends, and she introduced Jay to Debbie. They were married in 1990.