My sisters and I pose for the annual Austin Christmas photo.
From left to right: Alex (21), Abby (15), Sarah (24), Emily (18)
Family
I'm a 21-year-old journalism student at the University of Florida. I grew up in a
military family and have moved around a bunch of times. My dad retired from the Army after I
graduated from high school, and we moved down to Jacksonville. He now works as the Director
of Public Works for Clay County, and my mom works for the Clay County Health Department.
I have three sisters, one older and two younger. My older sister, Sarah, graduated from UF last
year and teaches 4th grade at Stephen Foster Elementary School. The older of my younger
sisters, Emily, is a freshman at Florida State University. She hasn't declared a major yet,
but she is interested in social work. The youngest, Abby, is a high school freshman at
Ridgeview High School in Orange Park, Fla. She plays clarinet in the marching band and is
in the IB program. As a military family, we rarely lived in one place for more than a couple
of years. We have lived in exotic and desirable destinations including Hawaii and Europe
along with the mundane and the unappealing including two years in Missouri and three years in
Kansas, where I graduated high school. In the end, the location didn't matter nearly as much
as the people, and there are good people everywhere. I've many friends in all of this travelling,
a few of which I still keep in touch with.