I saw Anna a couple of times, maybe three, in the corner of the parking lot behind Lowder Hall as I walked into work on the concourse between the business building and my Shelby Center office. It was not her wheelchair that caught my attention. It was her smile — it framed her face very naturally, in a relaxed way that didn’t suggest she was posing for a camera. I always walked on.

I wasn’t sure what to say, and I didn’t know who she was.

As it turns out, Anna Wilson is a sophomore in industrial and systems engineering, and a very ordinary student. This doesn’t mean she is an ordinary person — she surpasses that quite easily — but it does mean her everyday life on campus is not so different from anybody else’s.

Anna likes it all. Zip lining. Scuba diving. Being adventurous — which is how she describes her family. She will not, by her own admission, try new foods, however. And she is different.

A native of Clanton, Alabama, in a family with two older brothers and mom and dad, she was accidentally shot by one of her siblings with a pistol that her father had been using on pests in the chicken coop.

“Accidents happen,” she says. “My dad placed the gun on top of a bookcase, and one of my brothers climbed up to get it. It discharged coming out of the holster. It all happened in about 10 minutes.”
The bullet went through her skull, barely missing her eye, but lodged in the C2 and C3 vertebrae, leaving her a quadriplegic.

“It has been a long and difficult journey, but I am not scared to talk about the accident, or to talk about guns. I still like to accompany my dad when he goes hunting,” she says. “I also like riding horses and four-wheelers . . . mom and dad never let me give up. If they went, I went.”

In fact, her mother, Carla, is what Anna calls “part of the team,” and has been so since third grade. She bathes her, feeds her, changes her clothes and pushes her to class in an unmotorized wheelchair. She has a motorized version at home, which she describes as “huge” and somewhat unwieldy around campus.

“Auburn is fairly friendly for wheelchairs,” she says, more so than the other two campuses she visited in Alabama when she was shopping for colleges. “We also have a good bus system with wheelchair access, and a disability office that cares.”

She also speaks of Auburn’s friendly, small-town character. She proudly points out that she has changed her mother’s football preferences.

“I looked in Huntsville and Birmingham. They had what I wanted in science and math, but were not as friendly as Auburn — the Auburn spirit is real.”

Anna began her journey here in mechanical engineering, but has switched to industrial and systems, which she says is better suited for her. She just added a business minor.

“I liked everything about mechanical except for the physics,” she says with a laugh. “But with ISE I believe I have a better fit for a career in a wider variety of areas — for example, the ability to work in a hospital rather than a manufacturing environment. I also feel it has more of an engineering to business fit, and I am also enrolled in the Business-Engineering-Technology minor.”

Her school day is not so different from others, she says.

“I get up at 9:30 for my first class, which is at 1 o’clock this semester,” she explains, “not like 8 o’clock last semester — ugh! I am not much of a breakfast person, so I drink one of those booster drinks instead, and we get on our way. Most of the day is class and schoolwork.”

Her mom, Carla, sometimes takes notes for her, and sometimes a university notetaker does. She is assigned a proctor for her tests, which usually works out fine.

“The only trouble I have had was when I was taking calculus and my test proctor had no knowledge of it. Because of that we had trouble getting the equations and diagrams right on the paper,” she explains. “So what I ended up doing was using a paint program and SmartNav, which is a hands-free cursor control program. It worked fine.”

It’s that kind of work-around that gives Anna her can-do attitude.

“It may take me a little more time, or a little more effort, but I will get there eventually,” she says. “I can do it. I have my moments — my poor, pitiful me moments — but I climb out of that. There are people out there that have it worse off than me, I know.
“I may not be able to move normally,” she says, shaking her head. “But what is normal?”

She adds, “I look to the future, to do different things in life, to show people what I can do. To show the people who said I don’t need to bother trying to get to events, or go to college. That I didn’t need to do this, and I didn’t need to do that. Maybe just sit in my wheelchair.

“That’s not me,” she smiles. “I like to think that I’m determined . . . but maybe mom would say strong willed.”

Anna belongs to Kappa Alpha Theta sorority, and loves her time in it. “I rushed last summer, and they were very accommodating. We attend events together — my first ever Braves game — and we do so well together. These are some of my best friends!”
She adds that Theta’s number one goal is scholarship, to succeed academically and make good grades. She also points to the group’s philanthropy, CASA, (Court-Appointed Special Advocate), which advocates for foster child care in the courts.

She is also used to working in groups within the ISE curriculum, which she notes is a team-oriented environment, where “we’re smart in different areas, so we really work well together because of that.

“I like to talk, so I feel that I do well in work groups . . . I have to stand on my own, and feel like I do. We do a lot of group work in the library, and I have also been involved in the second round of the Tiger Tank competition that is part of the Business-Engineering-Technology program. There’s so much prep work involved.”

Anna adds that her goal is to find a job where she can help others, in large part “because so many have helped me.”

She looks to an internship or co-op assignment next spring, and perhaps to starting her own organization when she graduates — one that reflects her love of children, and animals.

First comes the balance of her education in the College of Engineering, and then it will be time to look. She will bring with her a gift.

That gift is, by her own admission, written across her face.

“I know I have a smile that lifts people. I’m just not sure I know why.”