More than anything else in the world, sophomore journalism major Felicia Lambdin wants to work with animals.

When Felicia was a child, she had several cats that she refers to today as her “buddies.” And currently she has a female Beta fish named Nanner, the only allowable pet in her dorm room at ETSU.

Felicia comes from a very rural and poor coalmining town of Clairfield, Tenn. Clairfield sits at the foot of the Appalachian Mountains near the Kentucky border and has a population of roughly a thousand. It is among the lowest income communities in America and has one of the lowest overall education levels in the country. Less than one percent of people over age 25 in Clairfield hold a college degree, according to neighborhoodscout.com.

Even Felicia’s family feels that college is a waste of her time, she said, and encouraged her take a certificate program at a technical university and get into the work force more quickly. But Felicia doesn’t want this. “I want to see the world,” she explained, and as a result she isn’t very family oriented. “I do my thing and they do theirs” is how she characterizes the relationship with her family.

 As for her hometown, Felicia describes it as “a lot of poverty” and “generally uneducated,” and she is determined to beat those odds. “I want to be a bigger part of things,” she said.

She got a chance at that during her senior year in high school when she volunteered at the Knoxville Zoo taking care of the penguins. “I cared for them, fed them, gave them their vitamins and cleaned up after them.” Even though the experience lasted only a weekend, her face lights up when she talks about it and caring for animals.

She looked into a zoology degree at the University of Tennessee, but in her research she realized she was more drawn to be a nature and environmental journalist. In the fall of 2007, Felicia enrolled at ETSU, a more economical choice for her future goal.

Her dream job is to write for National Geographic magazine.

Felicia is funding her education with a Hope Scholarship, which pays for her tuition based on academic performance and through federal work-study. Felicia lives and works on campus and is employed in the ROTC department office at Brooks Gym where her duties include general office tasks.

In her limited free time, she has some very unique and interesting, world-outreach hobbies. Felicia, being a German minor, was looking for a German pen pal online, but discovered instead pen pals in the Netherlands and Sweden. They write via snail mail a few times a month. She also stumbled onto a website called swapbot.com. With swapbot she trades things with people all over the world. You sign up on swapbot and you pick another member to swap things with. Many different swaps are listed. Felicia has sent Christmas and Valentine cards to people in South America and Scotland, and they sent her cards from their country. She has also sent American candy to Germany and received German candy in return.

She is planning to stay in Johnson City for the summer and is looking for an apartment. She has some job opportunities at The Mall in Johnson City that Felicia says are very promising.