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Personality 183Personality 163

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The Griffon164

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Personality 165

A lison Norris is living proof that if you work hard enough, your dreams can come true. As a graduating senior from Missouri Western, Alison

looked back on a long, hard road knowing she earned everything she would take with her.

Born in North Carolina to a missionary father and a teaching mother, Alison and her two brothers were moved around as children, living in different areas including the Dominican Republic for a while. When Alison was around seven her parents ended up in Kansas City, Mo., where her father continued to travel, preaching around different areas.

The Norris family eventually landed in Gower, Mo., where the three Norris children were taught from home, since Alison’s mother had a master’s in education. After two years of home schooling and church, Alison’s life took a drastic turn when her mother suffered a brain aneurysm and passed away when Alison was eight years old. The sudden life-altering loss was followed by her enrollment into public school. Alison had only ever had her brothers as classmates, so when she started the third grade, adjusting to this change took a while for her.

“It was hard for me to attend public school because I had never been around a lot of kids my own age,” said Alison. “At recess I would stick to myself and never wanted to make the effort to meet anyone.”

Alsion had a hard time adjusting, but by the time Alison was in the eighth grade, she had made friends and things started getting better. After gaining some maturity and learning how to adapt, she realized that her mom wouldn’t have wanted her to sit back and let life pass her by. Alison decided to get involved and make school worthwhile because she knew her mom would want her to.

Her transition into college was pretty smooth, and Alison looked forward to being involved. Being the first kid of her family to go to school, Alison had to completely support herself.

“I was on my own from the start, paying for my own school, finding my own place to live, everything,” said Alison. “But I know it was a good thing because it made me realize that I needed to know what I was going to do

and I did. I figured it out and made it happen.”Alison knew she wanted to go into Journalism starting out, so she began her writing classes and general education courses while still wanting to be apart of something.

Alison was on the Griffon News the first chance she got. She became the Lifestyles Editor soon after, and then right after that feat became the Editor-in-Chief. She absolutely enjoyed reporting and writing stories, but soon realized it wasn’t enough.

“I was writing news on all these things happening on campus, and I wanted to be the one doing those things, not just writing about it!” said Alison. “A friend of mine from high school joined SGA and told me how much fun she had so I decided to try it out.”

Alison became a student Senator soon after that and started to make things happen that she wanted to see. As a sophomore, Alison had taken on more challenges than some seniors ever had. While running the student newspaper, Alison was gaining more and more experience working with the student body. The following semester, Alison applied to be the Director of Communications, a position that essentially would combine her two previous positions. Becoming the Director of Communications she had the best of both worlds.

Alison worked with SGA on many different issues and helped out the President with everything she could.Alison ran for the position of SGA president herself that following fall, and took the position head on. She graduated a year later, in May 2012 with an Outstanding Graduate in Convergent Media Award and the knowledge that she could do anything she put her mind to. Alison would go on to graduate school, pursuing a Master’s in Higher Education with plans to continue working with student life.

“I get to put on events and programs and impact student’s lives,” said Alison. “All I want to do with my life is continue to mentor students to get past mediocre and encourage them to go beyond yourself and never do anything unless you’re going to do it all the way.”

Alison Norris

Story by Robyn Patti

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