Featured Alumni

Lori Markie

Child Development Careers

After kicking a five-year crack cocaine habit, Lori Markie, 34, much prefers the natural high she gets from college classes and photography. Markie got clean and sober for good, after a few stints in treatment programs and halfway houses, while pregnant with her daughter, Kristina, in 2002.

In August, a month after Kristina was born, Markie was accepted by a sober housing program that also helped her gain custody of her son, John, now 15. "The staff there got me interested in going to college," Markie says. "They encouraged me to take a class or two at Saint Paul College and see how I liked it. And it took off from there."

It certainly did. Now in her final year at the College, Markie will graduate in May with a Child Development degree. "I'm so excited," she says. "I have a 3.54 GPA after three straight-A semesters."

After living such a tumultuous life, Markie has learned to take adversity in stride. "Last fall, I was taking 13 credits and came down with a bad bout of mononucleosis halfway through the term," she says. "It was a mystery to me how I ended up pulling out my first straight-A semester. I hardly remember any of it. I prayed a lot the second half of that term."

She's also working hard to keep her life in balance. "Juggling school and parenting is really tough, especially with a little one," she says. "I've done what I can to get support from family and friends, and information on how to integrate my family and home life. One of the biggest things I did to manage the home situation is to place a desk for my daughter right next to mine so she can work next to me. She's learning how to write her name, the alphabet, and numbers now. When it's time for my son to do his homework, he'll be in his room or at the dining room table and my daughter and I will be at our desks, all working away."

After graduating from Saint Paul College, Markie will be transferring to Metropolitan State University, where she'll pursue a major in psychology and a minor in chemical dependency counseling, with aspirations of one day earning a Ph.D. in psychology.

She'll also be pursuing a passion that has awakened her creativity. "I took a photography class to meet my Fine Arts requirement for my degree, and it turned into something completely unexpected," she says. "When I was in junior high and high school, I won awards for art projects and did some paintings on commission for friends of my family. I've always been engaged in art in some form or another. But after I had my son, a lot of that fell to the wayside and I lost that creative part of me."

It's been said that if you ignore a talent long enough, it will resurface as a need. "Once I started that photography class, my creativity started to open up again," she says. "I thought, 'How cool is this?' I have these technical and psychology classes I'm taking for my degree so I can get to where I ultimately want to be, which is to help recovering people and recovering families and children who are exposed to chemicals during pregnancy. And then along comes this photography thing."

Markie, who has now taken all the photography classes that Saint Paul College offers, credits Aaron Bommarito, chair of the Fine Arts and Humanities Department, with reigniting her artistic fires. He also helped convince her to participate in the group art show for residents of the artist's co-op that Markie moved into in the summer of 2005. "Aaron is an awesome teacher," she says. "I was scared to death over that first art show and he encouraged me. His support and encouragement have led me to accept an opportunity to have my first independent photography show at the co-op at the end of May."

It doesn't surprise Bommarito that Markie has been able to turn her life around. "I had the pleasure of working with Lori in four different classes, and from day one I knew she was a creative and independent woman who strives to make a difference in the world," he says.

Markie is indeed striving to be a difference-maker. She testified in front of the state legislature in February on behalf of Minnesota State Senator Mee Moua's bill to support the Ramsey County Mothers First program, a reporting agency that works with pregnant woman who were known to be using during their pregnancy. "Mothers First helps women get clean and stay clean so they have clean, healthy babies," Markie says. "It's the agency that helped me straighten out when I was pregnant and using."

Her time at Saint Paul College is winding down, but Markie says she will always have fond memories of the four years she spent there. "Saint Paul College helped to give me the kind of support, encouragement, and stability that has enabled me to find my drive and passion," she notes. "My success at the College continues to fuel the passion I'm finding for photography, for helping other families in recovery, and for teaching children. It's been an absolutely incredible experience."

Phil Bolsta is a Blaine-based freelance writer.