WASHINGTON - As one Minnesotan assumed a powerful post in the White House's West Wing, another left an influential job in the East Wing.
The same day President Obama appointed Stillwater native Denis McDonough as his chief of staff, Crystal native Semonti Stephens left her job as deputy communications director for First Lady Michelle Obama.
Stephens witnessed history firsthand, from the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver when Obama accepted the Democratic nomination to his second inauguration.
Along the way, she helped shape the public image of the first lady, who has become one of the most recognizable women in the world and, according to polls, even more popular with Americans than her husband.
Now Stephens has left behind the East Wing for a new life on the West Coast.
"I'm taking two months off and then my husband and I are moving to San Francisco," Stephens wrote in an e-mail to the Star Tribune.
She worked as an intern for the late Sen. Paul Wellstone while a student at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter. But her formal career in politics began shortly after graduation when she landed a job as assistant press secretary on Missouri U.S. Rep. Dick Gephardt's unsuccessful presidential campaign.
From there, Stephens went on to work on Capitol Hill for four Senate Democrats, including Minnesotans Amy Klobuchar and Mark Dayton, now Minnesota's governor.
