Comm 2320
Basic Reporting for the School of Communication at ECU

A dancer for ten years, a basketball star, a pitcher for her softball team, a cheerleader for her high school, and an aggressive lacrosse player, Jessica Michele Nicholson never missed a beat growing up.

Born on July 30th, 1987, weighing ten pounds six ounces, Jessica Michele brought a new challenge for her parents. Jeanette Nicholson, mother of three and a loyal wife to her husband, David Nicholson, has become a huge role model in Jessica’s life.

With a mixture of her father’s athleticism and her mother’s intelligence, Jessica is using her lucky genes and lessons learned in life while studying communications at East Carolina University.

“Messy Jessie,” the nickname given to her by her mother during her early years has stuck with her. “She always slept through the night, but didn’t leave the room without leaving a trail behind her,” says Jeanette. Though the nickname was given at such a young age, Jessica still gives meaning to it with her clumsiness. “I’m surprised she is still alive after all of her accidents, falls, bumps, and bruises,” says her father David. However clumsy she may be, when it was game time or a performance in a dance recital, she did not make one mistake.

After participating in so many sports and activities for so many years, Jessica’s interests shifted in her early high school career. During her freshman year of high school, she immediately fell in love with the art of writing. Almost instantaneously, writing poetry became her passion and constant hobby.

A few years later, she became a writer and editor for her high school newspaper and assisted other students with the layout of the school’s yearbook.

“Jessica has always known what she wanted to do as a career,” says best friend Dana Burson. “Some of us are still trying to figure things out, but Jessica’s passion for writing was never a doubt.”

With growing up comes life-changing experiences and Jessica has been overwhelmed with many during adolescence, Jessica was forced to deal with numerous losses of loved ones. Sadly, she lost both of her great-grandmothers, grandfathers, her black lab Remington, her cat Tiffany and her childhood best friend Anna, who passed away recently. Her close family and friends believe these trials and tribulations dealt by God have only made Jessica stronger with each passing day.

“She thinks too much,” says her loving boyfriend Scott Grigsby. “She lets her mind wander to places they shouldn’t go. I wish she would just let the sadness and pain go so she can move on with her life.”

Through these past experiences, the thought of death has haunted Jessica endlessly. This fear of death causes Jessica to be very obsessive compulsive over many little things.

“She can’t let this fear control her life anymore,” says her mother.

Jessica is also an over-analyzer who stresses about things she shouldn’t and creates constant anxiety for herself. Jessica’s family admits they believe she should slow down and enjoy life, but with graduation quickly approaching, Jessica never lets herself relax, not even for a split-second.

Jessica is a very successful, determined and motivated woman when it comes to work and school.

“We are so proud of her for going away to college and maintaining the grades she does with having work and her sorority as a distraction,” says Jeanette. “She has always achieved good grades, ever since elementary school. She had a few distractions in high school from hanging out with the wrong crowd, but she pulled through.”

In high school, Jessica decided to run with a group of that would drink on the weekends and skip school to go to the mall. Jessica began to rebell due to the peer pressure from her new friends. Luckily she came to her senses and decided to do something with her life.

Her long distance relationship with her boyfriend has also been very hard on her but they both understand the importance of getting her degree.

“Going two to four weeks without seeing each other often creates petty arguments between us, but we love each other and we stay true to that,” says Scott.

Scott made it very clear that his love for Jessica will never fade. Even though the long distance relationship is constantly strained, he makes every effort to see his loved one as often as possible. “I love her very much,” Scott says. “I don’t know what I would do without her fun-loving attitude and her outlook on life.”

After college Jessica plans to move back to Maryland, start a career and hopefully begin a future with her boyfriend Scott. Since Jessica recently landed an internship with a movie production company, IMDB, she is anticipating her start date. She will assist the production company behind the scenes and learn from every day experiences. This is in her line of work so she is very excited to begin an internship. She hopes that this will lead to many more opportunities.

With so many lessons learned in life, Jessica hopes she can start to take a few seconds for herself every day, relax, get over her fear of death and achieve her dreams of becoming a writer.

Filed under: Classmate Profiles, Spring 2008