... autobiography ...

Autobiography: Adrianne Michelle Shepherd


On June 11, 1985 I entered the world. I am the youngest of three children: Adrianne Michelle Shepherd, sister to James Alan (four years older than myself) and Carl Roberts (two years older than me but had passed away prior to my arrival), daughter of Alan (deceased in 1989) and Leigh.

I am an average adult with brown hair and brown eyes. I went to elementary school in Botha, AB; junior high in Gadsby, AB and high school in Stettler, AB. Throughout my primary and secondary school years I was very active in extra-curricular and community activities. It was my way of giving back to the community that had helped raise me. I was an avid Boys and Girls Club member attending many different groups including Keystone, Torch, Spark, Zap, Kidpower, holiday programs and Big Brothers Big Sisters. I was involved on a provincial level as a youth co-chair for the Regional Youth Council for the Boys and Girls Clubs of Alberta and on a national level as the secretary and Alberta representative for the National Youth Council for the Boys and Girls Clubs of Alberta. I belonged to many different 4-H groups including Botha 4-H Multi, Botha Beef, Byemoor Beef and Endmoor Multi. Throughout the different clubs I gave public speaking workshops for younger members, participated in club events including public speaking and judging and I held various executive positions. I was a founding member of the Students Against Drinking and Driving group at Wm. E. Hay. I was the secretary in my first year and president in my remaining years. I coordinated strikes where we would take large signs that said why you shouldn’t drink and drive and stand along the road. I was a member of Team SADD Alberta, which was made up of six SADD members from around Alberta that coordinated the provincial conference. I was a member of my local Canadian Girls In Training group, which is a nondenominational group of girls that met on a weekly basis at my church. I was a member of the Botha United Church Youth Group, I was the vice-president of the Student’s Union and sat on many graduation committees.

Following graduation, I boarded a plane to the Netherlands where I lived for a year and worked as an au pair. I took care of four school aged children. I learned how to speak, read, write and understand Dutch. I travelled around the Netherlands and Europe. During this year I learned a lot about myself and what I wanted from life. While in the Netherlands I wrote for my hometown newspaper the Stettler Independent as a global correspondent. This is when I realized that I wanted to become a journalist.

Upon returning to Canada I had the opportunity to go to SAIT And take journalism or to go to RDC or the University of Lethbridge and take education. I decided upon journalism, it seemed like a more exciting opportunity. I loved the journalism program at SAIT and I excelled in my classes, however upon graduation I found how difficult it was to find a good journalism job and how poorly they paid.

I was working for the Stettler Independent and the chain of local papers it produces when I was sent on an assignment to cover an anti-bullying evening at the Boys and Girls Club. It was this club where I had spent most of my youth and where I learned to belong. It was near the end of the night, when the executive director brought up a story of one of the members from when I was a part of the club. This girl she spoke of was an avid volunteer, very selfless and giving. She was an acquaintance and a bit of a role model for me. The girl was being bullied at school and took her own life because of that. That is when it clicked, I felt like I wasn’t living up to my potential, for myself or for Nicky’s memory. So that night I applied to the U of L and to RDC going back to where I started. I decided that night that I needed to become a teacher.

So here I am, finishing my first year at RDC and transferring to the U of A. In 2013 I hope to graduate among friends and colleagues and to head out into the teaching world and educate and to help students realize that life is far too important and fragile to bully or to take your own life.

I currently volunteer at the college as an ESL tutor, for the MS Society as the coordinator of their youth program and as a board member and for a handful of other youth related activities throughout the city.

I am a relief youth worker at the 49th Street Youth Shelter in Red Deer. This job has been very eye opening and educational, it has opened new opportunities. The position has also made me question my minor – do I want to teach ESL in elementary or would I prefer secondary high needs education?

I love to travel. I have been to England, the Netherlands, France, Monaco, Germany and Switzerland. I hope to explore more of Europe in the near future and to meet up with the people I met while living abroad. I have travelled to many Canadian cities and to Wisconsin on a 4-H exchange.

Although I traded in my byline for textbooks, I still love to write. I have a blog and I write for fun. I am considering looking into freelance writing while living in Edmonton to make some extra cash.

I am a caring individual. I care about my friends and family the most. I have two amazing nephews who I spoil with educational toys and active dates (bowling, swimming, soccer or skating). My mother is my best friend. She was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in 1990 and I became her sole caregiver. I could do the laundry, cook, clean and do grocery shopping by the end of Grade 2. I have an amazing boyfriend who is understanding about how into my school work I get and how dedicated I am to finishing school. Between my mother, my boyfriend and school friends I have an amazing support system and a great group of people to bounce project ideas off of.

I have learned over the past year to push myself to try harder. I have learned that I have more potential than I thought I had. I have more passion, drive and enthusiasm towards teaching and becoming a teacher than I ever thought I encompassed. I have found what I love and I cannot wait for the next three years to breeze by so that I can do what I love.