Student Highlight: Thoughts of a Bio Major

By Travis Lott

Porter Jones (’24) is a sophomore at Southern Virginia University, originating from Pierre, South Dakota. Porter plans on graduating in the spring of 2024 with a degree in Biology. I met Jones during the 2020–2021 school year through the swim team.

Jones decided to attend Southern Virginia for a couple reasons. He wanted to go to a church affiliated school and participate in sports. Jones has been on the track team for several years, starting on the swim team as well in the 2020–2021 school year.

Jones doesn’t have a lot of exciting things happening this semester, aside from the end of swim season and the entirety of the track season.

A couple of the things Jones likes to do in Buena Vista is driving around town and to the parkway. He also enjoys spending time at the river in the fall and spring.

When asked what his favorite sandwich was, Jones mentioned a Domino’s sandwich. This specific sandwich contained pepper jack cheese, grilled chicken, habanero sauce, pineapple, and jalepeños.

Jones also discussed superpowers. If he could have any superpower, it would be the power of teleportation. Details for the teleportation include the ability to teleport anywhere you can see, the ability to bring others with you (similar to Harry Potter), and the ability to teleport anywhere that you have been before.

When Jones was in high school, there was an abandoned office building in his hometown that Jones and his friends enjoyed messing around in. Jones explained a time when they were there at night, one of his friends decided to take a fire extinguisher off the wall to play with it and set off the fire alarm. The group of boys booked out of the building before they got caught. The next day, the boys went back to the site,and realized that they had run across a knocked over barbed wire fence. They were lucky that it had been knocked over, otherwise they would have run right into it in the dark and gotten really hurt.

In a closing comment, Jones confirmed what most people have heard about the fourth floor of Main Hall saying, “It was definitely kinda creepy when I went up there.” So pretty much, the ghost stories are confirmed and we need to call on the ghostbusters to exorcise the ghosts out of Main Hall.