Name 2018 Irish Rose
SDN STAFF REPORT The Golden Triangle Celts has named
O’Brien was honored at a luncheon Saturday at the Three
O’Brien is an Irish-American from Vancleave and a senior broadcasting student at Mississippi State University. She currently is the lead news producer at WMSV 91.1 and a writer for the MSU Reflector.
The 20-year-old will graduate in May and continue her education at the University of Southern Mississippi’s Long Beach campus, in pursuit of a master’s degree in education. She hopes to eventually teach at her alma mater, Gulf Coast Community College.
During her two years at MSU, O’Brien volunteered in various soup kitchens, helped in after-school programs, helped with fundraisers benefitting animals and candy-striping at local hospitals with her dog.
O’Brien enjoys adventuring to new places, learning about different customs, baking, going on road trips and collecting vintage teacups. As a child, O’Brien was taught by her grandparents to value her Irish heritage and embrace the culture that helped shaped her family and herself as an individual.
Between her childhood of growing up in a small, Southern town and her cultural identity of being Irish-American, O’Brien has come to believe that food is the best way to reach people. She does this through a column in the Reflector about embracing cultural diversity through food.
O’Brien lives through the Irish blessing: “May you have the hindsight to know where you have been, the foresight to know where you are going, and the insight to know when you have gone too far.”
When O’Brien started college at the age of 16, she know immediately that she needed to do something special in the world. She began talking to local candidates for sheriff, and she is currently working closely with officers from her home sheriff’s department to make schools safer for children in Mississippi.
O’Brien’s pet project in life is to do everything possible to make others smile.
O’Brien is a proud attendee of both Vancleave United Methodist Church and Holy Spirit Catholic Church of Vancleave.