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A Movement Through Music: Audra McAnally-Parson’s mission to be there for local teens through a shared love of music.
By: BHS EAST
Music is almost always a common ground for conversation between people in any community, even here in Benton. Someone who knows that better than anyone, is Audra McAnally-Parsons of Retro Rose. She has made it her mission to create a safe place for all teenagers and adults that enjoy music.
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Compared to your average teen, Audra went through far more challenging experiences with family and friends. “When I was 11 my mom signed my rights to my sister who was 18,” she told us.
From then on she told us about the struggles of being raised by her teenage sister and how that of course affected the rest of her life in many different ways. From hanging out with her sister and her older friends to graduating college and starting her own business, she went through many trials and roadblocks but continued to persevere through and find a way to follow her plan and dreams.
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While being raised by an older sibling is not something that many kids have to go through, Audra also faced other obstacles that many other teens can understand. “In middle school, I became very depressed, people started to bully me calling me Emo, which these days is what’s cool,” she says.
When you’re facing other struggles with family and home life, bullying makes it all worse. She mentioned that maybe if she had someone in the community to talk to and a safe place to talk about her struggles and just relax and hang out it would’ve made her feel a lot better during those years full of hardships and struggle. This was a primary point of inspiration for her current mission to be that person in the community who is there to listen to those who need someone to talk or rant to and to provide a safe, comfortable environment for those people, especially teens.
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Another obvious struggle many people face in life is dealing with peer pressure with drugs and alcohol at a young age. While it wasn’t so much an issue for Audra, she had to witness friends and others around her deal with getting into those things and even some classmates get so far into becoming addicts.
“Once I graduated High School, I had a couple of friends that committed suicide, and some that overdosed on Heroin,” she mentioned.
So along with the same principle of providing a safe place and someone to be there for the kids in the community, she wants to be able to promote a clean healthy lifestyle of being yourself and not falling into the pressure of others that might lead down a dangerous path.
Audra’s life has had many ups and downs, from having her mother sign over guardianship to her sister, and facing anxiety and depression, Audra now hopes that she can be an inspiration for people that might be going through similar things and to be able to show that no matter what you have to go through, you can always push through while also being there for others around you.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OymoF_Wxfg[/embedyt]
Article and video created by Benton EAST Students, Jonah Chrestman, Micah Meredith & Noah Kappert. Email any comments to [email protected]. See the archive of all articles by EAST Students at www.mysaline.com/benton-east.