Jackson Norman was honored as Sunrise Rotary’s Student of the Month a week ago.
He overcame difficult circumstances as a child, rebuilt his life, and has become both a success and role model at Staples.
He grew up in Atlanta, with a father who suffered from alcoholism, whose parents divorced when he was a young boy. His father ultimately “lost his battle to addiction” when Norman was in middle school, after which his mother returned to Westport with he and his younger brother.
Restarting his life at Coleytown Middle School wasn’t easy. “People often have a very hard time talking to others about loss, grief and addiction… I remember having to tell the first few friends I made after moving here what had happened to my dad, and I remember not really wanting to. I remember not wanting to make them sad, or upset, or uncomfortable because the topic of death does make people uncomfortable. I wanted to change that.”
Yet “I knew from my experiences that talking about these things made going through them so much easier.”
After a year at Coleytown he moved up to Staples. There he found both Players and the Teen Awareness Group. Representatives of the latter spoke in his freshman health class about “the social scene” at Staples, and sponsored a drunk driving prevention day.
“I knew I wanted to be part of this group.”
“We spoke to high schoolers, and middle school parents, and whoever else would listen to us.”
He recently made a public service announcement for Positive Directions, Westport’s “primary provider of alcohol and substance misuse prevention.”
He lauded his mother, Jenny McCarthy, a Staples graduate, and his grandmother, Alice Rago, for their support, “people who told me it was okay to cry, okay to be sad, okay to not be okay.” And he thanked a fellow Player for telling him “she was sorry for my loss,” and told her “it was comforting to know other people understand.”
Now, as a senior on the verge of graduation, Norman looks ahead. He plans to attend Syracuse University’s School of Visual and Performing Arts, and looks toward becoming a stage manager (the person who assists the director during rehearsals, then takes over and runs the company once a show opens).
The headline of Norman’s talk was “We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play them.”
Well played, young Jackson Norman.