About Me

From the time I was born, I have always been a fun-loving, persevering person, ready for any challenges that come my way. I was born with spina bifida, a neural tube birth defect, which resulted in me being paralyzed from the waist down. I grew up in the Atlanta suburbs, first in Stone Mountain until I was 4, and then in Roswell until I graduated from high school. I am an only child with wonderful parents who always believed that I could do anything. Even in times when they had doubts, they always let me try something on my own before they just said “no.” The road to independence took a little longer for me than others because I had lots of surgeries and broken legs as a kid, but I eventually got there and am fully independent today.

I always liked school, at least as much as any kid does, and was a good student. I think that having a disability made me use to having to work hard to achieve, which is an attitude that really helped me in school.

I was involved in lots of activities in my childhood. Many were the typical activities that kids are involved in, like piano lessons, Girl Scouts, church choir, and high school yearbook staff. Others, however, were related to my disability, like SPARX, a spina bifida day camp for kids with spina bifida, ALTA wheelchair tennis clinics, Spina Bifida Association of Georgia events, and AAASP wheelchair sports. Sports played a huge part in my life growing up. For me and many other kids with disabilities, sports is a great way to relate to other classmates because the sports are enough like to able-bodied sports to share playing stories, but they’re also different enough for the person with a disability to learn from the able-bodied person and vice versa. For kids with disabilities who may feel like they don’t fit in at school, sports is a great way to overcome that barrier. While I always had friends in school, I’ll always remember the times when I could talk to my high school’s star athletes about how my team won our game, just like they had.

After graduating from high school, I went to college at Furman University in Greenville, SC and majored in Communication Studies. I decided pretty quickly that I wanted to go away to school to get a chance to live in a different city and meet new people. I wanted the opportunity to prove that I could be independent and also to get a great education. I absolutely loved Furman from the moment I first set foot (or wheel!) on campus.

When I wasn’t spending time doing random things with friends or studying, I spent most of the rest of my time either being student manager of the Men’s Basketball Team, where I filled the sports void that had been inside of me since high school and made some great friends, or at WSSL, the radio station where I interned. Growing up, everyone thought that I would someday become a news journalist, but I fell in love with the music industry after meeting people at the radio station and realized that I could turn my passion for music into a career. From day one at the station, I soaked in everything that I could, while meeting some great people along the way.

One internship led to others, and I knew that the music industry was where I belonged, so a week after college graduation, I moved to Nashville, where I’ve been ever since. I have successfully found a job, have a great place to live, and have the most fabulous friends anyone could ask for. Among other things, I love volunteering for ABLE Youth, a Nashville area organization that uses sports as a vehicle to build independence among kids with disabilities.

When I tell people about my life, they are often amazed that I have accomplished all that I have, but, to me, it never occurred to me that I couldn’t or shouldn’t. I hope my life and my reign proves that people with disabilities are just like everyone else, but we just accomplish things a little differently. In fact, I don’t think I would have accomplished as much in life as I have if I didn’t have a disability. It’s given me the opportunity to do things and develop qualities that I otherwise couldn’t have.

Whatever the circumstances, I think that everyone should live life to it’s fullest. It is my hope to continue living this way and to encourage others to do the same.