Tia grew up in Ceredo and graduated from Ceredo-Kenova High School in 1996. Born to Jim and Donna Rumbaugh, she was raised up at Central United Methodist Church on 11th Street West and Jefferson Avenue in the West End of Huntington. Her mother operated a commercial plant business called Perennial Favorites Greenhouse, and Tia worked in every aspect of the family business for the next 30+ years. Maybe you saw her on KidsMag in the 1990's, or when she hosted its spinoff KidsMag Theater? Tia was Student Body President, loved Model United Nations, ran cross country too slowly, modelled dresses for Yellow Brick Road, and was an avid computer-BBS-using, geeky-nerd type. Her screen name in the early days of the internet was: The Adventurer.
She earned a B.S. from NYU in 2000, and lived in New York working very successfully in tech, overlapping with the arts and entertainment industries until 2005. She then pivoted to work overseas in South Korea, China, and Thailand from 2006–2010 in education and business development, which became the foundation for her legacy work upon returning to the States.
As a serial entrepreneur, her first registered business back in WV was Madison Avenue Gardeners, which won the state contract for perennials, annuals, shrubs and trees circa 2011–2012. This was just the beginning of her meteoric rise back home in Huntington.
After the birth of her daughter and son, Tia founded So Social LLC in 2013 — an early-education consulting firm and childcare facility grounded in Montessori and RIE practices — and in later years Forest Adventure Co-Op, an innovative OST child-care center and summer camp program. After a decade in WV early education, she was selected as a Fellow for the Hunt Institute, a national nonpartisan policy advocacy group, and worked with WV state leaders on national trends and strategies for childcare improvements via legislation.
In 2024, Tia diversified her work further, returning to her tech background and beginning work in AI data annotation and property management throughout Cabell County. Most recently, she is learning to drive a forklift and earning her OSHA-30 certification via the Assistantship Readiness program at Mount West Community and Technical College, with a personal goal to drive a bulldozer on her 24-acre farm just outside the city limits of Huntington.
Tia's uniquely diverse professional experiences — in small business and corporate, national and international, agricultural, technology, and education — have prepared her to take on almost any issue that Cabell County may face.
In 2020, voters elected Tia to Huntington City Council, District 3, which is the downtown area known as river to rail and 1st Street to 20th Street — it includes Pullman Square and much of Marshall University. She was elected for a second term in 2024. As a councilwoman, Tia has taken a residents-first approach to making decisions, consistently listening to their feedback on agenda items and siding with the majority of residents, not necessarily the administration, regardless of Republican or Democrat affiliation. Tia believes in people over party.
Over the years she has pushed for a safer, more walkable downtown, expanding childcare access and grants and subsidies, increasing public bathroom access, more water fountains, more green spaces, and addressing homelessness with dignity via common-sense enforcement of loitering and nuisance laws and supporting social-service interventions. Tia knows recovery is possible, and that mental-health treatment access is crucial for a better, safer Cabell County.
She has called for parking reforms, holding slumlords accountable, pre-emptive data-center protective policies for residents, storm-water fee duplicate-billing removal, reduction in the user fee, upholding constitutional rights for business owners from search without a warrant, upholding rights to free speech, upholding rights to assemble, upholding 2nd Amendment rights, supporting Special Metals and Cabell Nurses' Unions, expanding festivals and events, supporting the arts, addressing potholes, advocating for new sidewalks, curbs, and lighting, addressing street flooding, soliciting international business to build locally, advocating for the animal shelter's full funding, calling out hypocrisy, calling out lies, and celebrating our local victories big and small. She's been a part of a lot and doesn't sit quietly by while the world churns around us. Tia jumps in to help, wherever she can, on behalf of her neighbors.
She is running for County Commission because the same principles she rallies — transparency, neighbors first, and innovative solutions — need to govern the decisions made at the courthouse.
Tia Fix Rumbaugh lives in downtown Huntington with her two biological children, Emmaleah and James, and a uniquely blended family — including co-parent Japheth Stump, an Iraq Veteran National Guardsman, and Japheth's child from a former marriage, Isaac Stump, a recent Marshall University graduate. Every other weekend they are joined by co-parent Chris Douthat, a Navy Veteran originally from Huntington and now residing in Columbus, OH. In 2025, they had the honor of becoming a foster family to a 13-year-old and her newborn infant, and host to the teen's biological parent. Together but living apart, Tia's partner of almost 7 years is Dr. E. Del Chrol. She follows the Golden Rule in all things, loves her neighbors, our military veterans, and law enforcement. She truly believes we're all in this together, and invites everyone to join her at the table.