Mariel Williams
editor@mitchellnews.com
Mayland student Jana Malone has joined the Mitchell News Journal staff as our fall intern.
After studying at Mayland Community College, Malone hopes to transfer to East Tennessee State University and major in digital media. She is excited to learn about journalism and the people of Mitchell County.
“I’ve always had a love for writing,” Malone said. “I’ve even tackled some fantasy books, and I’ve gotten all the way up to [writing] six chapters in one, and I have a couple others that I’ve just written a quick synopsis — just ideas to tackle later on.”
Malone lives in Yancey County but grew up in Florida. She worked in a wide variety of different fields before deciding to attend Mayland.
“I was a delivery driver for Amazon,” Malone said. “I’ve done so many different types of jobs … customer service, and I’ve worked in factories, food industry.”
Malone had an ankle injury that forced her to stop doing package deliveries.
“There were many times that I had intended to go to college and just never did it,” she said. “With the injury that happened with my ankle, I just kind of took advantage, when I wasn’t able to work, and enrolled.
Malone moved to North Carolina a few years ago in order to escape an abusive relationship.
“I moved to Asheville originally … I moved with my mom; it was just kind of needing a change,” she said.
Malone’s mother ended up settling in Weaverville, and Malone ended up following another relationship up into the higher mountains.
“I moved in with my girlfriend,” she said. “We met in Asheville — she already lived in Burnsville, and now we’re married.”
Malone said the ETSU digital media program has four different concentrations that could lead her to a variety of careers, and she’s not yet sure which one she will choose. According to the department’s website, graduates can go on to work on video games and movies, as well as a variety of corporate jobs.
Malone said her all-time dream job would be designing characters or worlds for a video game, but she is open to a wide variety of careers.
“I have so many different interests, so really if I go into something different I would be just as happy — I have multiple dream jobs,” she said.