Looking back on alumna’s short-lived inspiring life

“I know you may not want to see me on your way down from the clouds. Would you hear me if I told you that my heart is with you now?”

Ben Harper never met Tiffany Bishop, and odds are he was not writing his song “She’s Only Happy in the Sun” about her either, but Sara Doude, associate professor of criminal justice, will always think of Tiffany every time she hears it.

The song played on their way to the funeral.

“It broke us all down,” Doude said. “Through that trip there, ‘She’s Only Happy in the Sun’ was one of the last songs we heard and (we) were getting really anxious about her funeral.”

GC’s Tiffany Bishop graduated with a bachelor’s degree in mass communication with a focus in public relations in 2009, and in 2010 got her master’s in criminal justice. Tiffany died Wednesday, Aug. 31, 2011, due to a fatal gunshot wound at a training facility at Jackson State Prison in Jackson, Ga., at the age of 24.

“I immediately started crying,” Doude said. “I don’t think I believed it until I saw the body and, even now, I’m in a zombie-like state.”

Others just remembered her for her constant upbeat and passionate personality.

“It just had a real impact on me,” said Ginger Carter Miller, professor of mass communication. “She had a heart the size of the continental United States,” she paused. “Wait, that might be underestimating how large her heart was.”

Her death had an instantaneous imprint on all those around her. The shock waves were felt almost immediately as the news passed from person to person.

“I’m normally a very gregarious, happy person,” Doude said. “The first night, (I) was just crying, screaming ‘Why this person?’”

Tiffany’s short life had an immeasurable affect on anyone who came into contact with her, even if it was just for a minuscule moment.

“The funeral was in Mcdonough, Ga. It was a nice size funeral home,” Miller said.  “The  viewing started at eleven, and we got there about 11:20, and it was already packed. The line was wrapped around the chapel just to talk to her family.”

Tiffany was remembered for her spirit.

“She was just very positive,” Doude said.

“There was this guy who spoke at the funeral who was training with her,” Doude recalled. “And it was this big, burly, scary looking dude, and she passed by all the nicer looking people and said, ‘Hi, I’m Tiffany, do you want to be my partner for training?’ She impacted him positively after just an hour and a half.”

She was always willing to do anything for anyone. In the Fall of 2007, her public relations writing class was introduced to stories from the point of view of cancer survivors. As a part of a class project, they got together and wrote letters back to the survivors.

One of her classmates, Lauren Edwards Hammond, interviewed a little girl struggling with cancer, and worried that her parents might need help making Christmas special for their children. “(We) all agreed among us to bring in as much as we could to make a nice Christmas basket for the family. Tiffany showed up the day we collected items with an iPod nano, and everyone in the class was kind of taken aback,” Miller said.

They all asked in various ways if she was sure she wanted to do that. An iPod nano in 2007 was not exactly the cheapest thing in the world, and even today it would be an expensive gift for any college student.

“She said she bought it for the brother because ‘I didn’t want him to feel left out,’” Miller said with tears welling up in her eyes. “I think about her generosity and her thinking about that, outside of everything else. That’s the kind of person she was. That’s the kind of heart she had. That’s the kind of soul she had, and that’s the kind of legacy she leaves.”

She always seemed to have her mind set on going into some kind of career in criminal justice, but this did not stop her from putting forth a Herculean effort in everything else she did. Her public relations writing class in 2007 became the founding members of the GC chapter of the Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA).

“We worked so hard from the Fall of 2007 to the Spring of 2008 to get this off the ground and I just worked so closely with her on all those things,” Miller said. “It just had a real impact on me.”

Tiffany’s true dreams lay somewhere outside the field of public relations.

“Her dad was a federal probation officer, so I think that was a large reason she wanted to get into that field, and she really liked it,” Doude said. “I would venture to say she was one of the top students I’ve ever seen come through the program. All of us in criminal justice tried and tried to talk her into getting her Ph.D. because she was just that smart. She set the bar for graduate students.”

“Her mother made a quip,” Miller said, referring back to the funeral. “I said I had met her at the senior luncheon for public relations students, and she said ‘That was before she jumped ship.’”

Miller did not think she jumped ship, though. She thinks she followed her dreams.

No one who knew Tiffany wants her death to be forgotten. Doude wants to create an endowment in her honor.

“It’s going to go to grad students who want to go into corrections because that is the least desirable job,” Doude said. “I don’t want master’s students to go into a not very high paying job with a lot of debt, but it’s very worthwhile.”

Miller commented on the local PRSSA chapter creating an award in her memory.

“I think we should call it the Tiffany Bishop Unsung Hero Award because she was always working behind the scenes,” Miller said.

No matter who came into contact with Tiffany whether it was through class, or her probation officer training, or even through the different customers she waited on during her five years at Amici in downtown Milledgeville, she had an absolute impact on everyone. She created a lasting memory for everyone including Doude.

Doube holds, “she’ll always be sunshine in my life.”

Posted by KevinHall on Sep 8 2011. Filed under Features, Lead stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.