Made Like You: Sarah Morrison

Winter on the southern shores of Lake Superior can be—how to put this accurately—ferocious. That’s not a bad thing. It simply means that to thrive in Northern Michigan, to press through hundreds of inches of annual snowfall and the long, dark months of bitter cold, you have to have a bit of grit. A little gumption.

Sarah Morrison gets it. She learned that positive Yooper posture from her late grandfather, a Marquette-Lake Shore foundry worker, who every winter included her in the snow removal in front of his house. The routine: first, one shovels the sidewalk and then, only after one is thoroughly finished with the pavement, one shovels off the entire grassy lawn.

“I just thought it was normal,” Sarah says of the daunting chore, even though her friends suggested it might be a little crazy. “I learned very quickly that if I didn’t shovel that grass, even if it was an inch and a half covered, I would get that one look that said: You’ve got to go back out and do it right.”

Sarah learned how to do it right. Which is perhaps why, when she was in high school, a single A.P. class on U.S. Government ignited something in her—something about her own ability to effect change within a colossal bureaucracy.

She didn’t want to go half in. Instead, she launched fully into politics, involving herself locally, regionally, and nationally in campaigns that she could believe in, initiatives that might have made her grandfather proud.

“I always wanted to advocate for other people and try and make some change in the world,” she says. “It sounds very Miss USA, but my high school teacher really made Supreme Court cases and the entire American government system exciting to me.”

After graduating from Northern Michigan University, Sarah made the big leap to Washington D.C., where she discovered an environment populated by people either unwilling to say Hi and look her in the eyes, or alternately eager to place a card in her hand and deliver an elevator speech. Everyone, it seemed, ignored her or wanted something from her.

Sarah says she simply wanted to work hard, so when she was offered a position in the Advertising, Marketing, and Advocacy department at The Washington Times, she mustered up her grandpa’s work ethic and fearlessly clocked in.

“I think he’d be happy that I haven’t truly changed my behavior and attitude from the U.P.,” says Sarah. “A lot of people out here will say, If it’s not in my job description, I’m not going to do it. I’m willing to spend the extra time, come in early, stay late, and work efficiently.”

Sarah says her work at The Times is in service of what she considers her most important role yet: elevating the nation’s political discourse through solid news gathering and an informed readership. Real news for real Americans. She believes in her paper, whose Twitter followers recently increased by twenty thousand with her help.

“Helping provide unbiased news is something that gives me a reason to live every day,” she says. “I can hear my grandfather yelling at me for the amount I curse on the drive home from work, but otherwise, he’d be proud.”

Made Like You: These are the stories of real people who embody, emulate, or otherwise exhibit the short-list of values we care about most at Stormy Kromer—kindness, family, neighborliness, resilience, graciousness, strength, adventure, and a love of the elements (both urban and natural)—despite any adversity. We build caps, clothes, and accessories for a special community that’s not only eager to thrive within those elements, but also give something back. Our clothes are made like them. Like you. These are your stories.