WSFA anchor speaks at event

A group of young women were recognized on Thursday for their participation with the M.I.S.S Elite Society.

The society, whose purpose is to motivate and create sophisticated female students, held its pinning ceremony on Thursday, Jan. 29.

Family, friends, faculty and staff joined in the Trojan Center Ballrooms to support the women of this organization.

JoAnna Simon, a sophomore athletic training major from Tuscaloosa and treasurer for the M.I.S.S. Elite Society, said that she has benefited from being in the society and that it has afforded her many opportunities.

“This is my first year at Troy and, as treasurer for M.I.S.S. Elite, I have benefited from this illustrious society by learning how to become a better leader from the position that I hold,” Simon said.

“My duties include coming up with fundraising ideas so that we can pay for events like the pinning ceremony, and I have enjoyed every minute of becoming friends with so many of our members.”

Members of the society were recognized for their achievements in the organization and heard from key speakers such as Tonya Terry of WSFA News and Chancellor Jack Hawkins Jr. They also received a pin to commemorate the occasion.

Terry, a graduate of Troy University, spoke to the organization about how she accomplished her dreams.

“After taking a look at myself, I picked myself up, came to Troy and I did what I needed to do,” Terry said. “I wanted to be on television.”

Terry encouraged the women to believe in themselves.

“I believed that I could do it (become a news anchor) and knew exactly what I wanted to do,” Terry said. “Don’t give up.”

She was then initiated as an honorary member of the M.I.S.S. Elite society.

Hawkins used the acronym L.E.A.D.

to inspire the members to use language to effectively communicate, exercise enthusiasm and appropriate etiquette, alter one’s attitude accordingly and direct one’s path with a vision.

“The difference in an educated person and an uneducated person is their ability to communicate,” said Hawkins.