Profiles - About Alumni for March 2009

Featured Alum: Mirsada Buric, 1993-94, General Studies

Left: Mirsada as a cover story, Reader's Digest, April 1997

While reading through the Courier last week I came across a story on one of our alumnae - Mirsada Buric. I was awed and believe other alumni and students will also find her story most inspirational.

“Mirsada, who comes from a Bosniak (Muslim) family in her native Yugoslavia, is driven by a burning desire to do what she can to help remind the world of the horror she witnessed in 1992 when her village was "ethnically cleansed" in genocidal assaults by Serbs.

The warring claimed the life of her brother and a 12-year-old cousin, who died when shrapnel from a shell pierced his family apartment's front door, then ripped through another door and severed the boy's jugular vein. The Serbs also massacred many of the village's men, and detained Mirsada and her family members in a Serb-controlled concentration camp, where her uncles were mercilessly beaten and the detainees had to subsist on a daily ration of a cup of tea and a piece of bread.”

Above: Mirsada running at the Barcelona Olympics.

Upon her release she focused her energy on training for the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona, running on the war torn streets. “Mirsada would go on to complete the 5,000-meter race at the Olympics. A Prescott man, Eric Adams, responded to the media attention that Mirsada received by contacting her and sponsoring her emigration to this country in 1993, and the two would later marry.”

She explained to me that her life changed again she received a call from Yavapai College’s Jay Williams who offered her an athletic scholarship. The following year, Yavapai's cross-country team won the national title and Mirsada gained the national title for 5,000 meters.

Above: Mirsada speaking in Chicago.

While here, she gained better language skills and took general courses, but later went on to receive a journalism degree from Columbia University. This busy mother of two, Amor 8, and Rebecca 10, worked for the Courier for seven years and is currently in finance at Chase Bank.

Want to learn more about this remarkable woman? For a Daily Courier article of Feb. 23, Click here! (156 KB)

(back to top)

Alum In the News: Candi Carroll, 1999, Nursing

As written up in The Daily Courier, Saturday, January 31, 2009

With the love and support of her family, friends and co-workers, Candi Carroll has successfully completed her Masters in health administration through University of Phoenix. Candi obtained her nursing degree from Yavapai College in 1999. She enjoyed learning so much that she proceeded to complete her Bachelors of Nursing from University of Phoenix and ultimately reached her goal of a Masters degree. Commencement will be May 9, 2009, at the University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Ariz.

(back to top)

Alum Update: Ken Bennett, Attended 1978-81

A recent Daily Courier article on Arizona's new secretary of state (148 KB), using tissue boxes to explain the state's budget.

(back to top)