Fran Sunn grew up in a tiny Colorado town and chose Ole Miss in part because so few students in her senior class would even consider college in the South.
Sunn, 19, said attending Ole Miss has been different from what she imagined, even though her grandparents live in Oxford.
“I think my experience was different than the Ole Miss experience I had in mind,” said Sunn, who developed a fiercely independent streak growing up in Greeley, Colorado.
“Freshman year, I was a whole different person, trying to act like I never had before,” Sunn said. “In order to fit in, I had to brush away who I was in high school.”
Being thrust into an environment that prides itself on traditions, Sunn balanced between fitting in with her fellow students and standing out as an individual.
Born into a preacher’s family, much of Sunn’s life was spent following her father as he planted churches in a number of towns before the family settled in Colorado.
She grew up in a cul-de-sac neighborhood with a lot of other kids her age, and she fit in easily.
“That was really fun,” Sunn said. “We would walk around barefoot. We would play in the streets. I remember biking a lot.”
It wasn’t until the beginning of high school, however, when the family relocated to Denver, that she began to shape into the independent spirit that she is now.
Sunn thrived in an urban setting, attended a very liberal high school with a diverse student body with a variety of religious perspective. Christianity was simply one option.
“I had one friend who went to church. She was a Messianic Jew,” Sunn said. “But I wouldn’t tell people that I was a Christian. It was not very fashionable.”
She worked to balance the pressures of handling high school life and being a preacher’s daughter at the same time.
“We would go to concerts on the weekends usually, and we would also go to house parties,” Sunn recalled. “There was a lot of heavy drinking and a lot of weed. It was almost like people smoked more weed than they drank. That was different to me and especially to my parents.”
During her sophomore year, she began attending these parties, changing her look, shopping for clothes at thrift shops and local dives.
Her senior year came with a defining moment for her college career and the rest of her life, when she decided to go against the flow and attend The University of Mississippi.
Soon after arriving here, Sunn discovered how different the South could be, especially the social branding and stratification.
“That’s a cultural difference that I dislike about the South,” she said. “You’re sort of conformed. Everyone wants the same kind of jewelry and type of clothing and wants to fit in and blend in. But everyone in Denver was trying to do something drastic to stand out from the crowd. I guess that being different here is not necessarily a positive thing.”
Ironically, her swimming-against-the-stream attitude made her popular with other students.
“She is very free-spirited,” said best friend and roommate Brittany Murphree. “She doesn’t care what others think about her. She has good morals, but she does what she wants to do.”
Sunn’s upbringing, away from the South, oddly enough prepared her for social expectations and other cultural differences.
“I think having moved a few times has made me okay with being lonely,” Sunn said. “It’s probably hard for people who grew up around the same things and who were really close to their parents to be alone. I’ve learned to be independent.”
