Photo By: Taylor Brown
Bud Murphy's Sports Bar/Restaurant
Connellsville, Pa.
It’s a little after five o’clock and the parking lot of Bud Murphy’s Sports Bar is already full with a sea of cars, which means that every seat around the bar is probably already taken. For bartender Lisa Cameron, 36 of
Scottsdale this means that she will be pouring her first beer within seconds of stepping behind the bar and clocking in. This is something all too familiar to Cameron and is nothing more than another hectic, but typical Friday night at
work.
Cameron earned a degree in communication disorders from California University of Pennsylvania in 2011 and was hired almost immediately after graduation with the Intermediate Unit one as an early detection speech
therapist.
During her time as a speech therapist, Cameron had two children and committed herself to the role of stay-at-home mom to Ryan, now 9 and Carlie, now 7. It was also during this time that she realized that she was not where she was meant to be in her life, so she made the decision to drift away from her first degree to pursue something that she had always been passionate about; journalism.
“My first degree was my parent’s degree, but journalism will be mine,” Cameron said. “I know I am a talented writer and I believe in the power of words.”
In order for Cameron to return to school and make her long time dream a reality, she knew that she would need to find a part-time job that would fit into her already hectic schedule. It was then that she found her way to bartending, which became a better fit than she could have hoped for.
“Returning to school for me just made sense because I was going back for something that didn’t seem like work,” Cameron said. “I was going back for something that was a true passion.”
These days, Cameron finds herself doing her own homework beside her two children.
“We grow together,” Cameron said. “I teach them that it is never too late or inopportune to reach a
goal.”
Although the process for Cameron has been slow moving, with every class that she takes her dream of becoming a professional writer gets closer to being realized.
“I have more on my transcript than the Gettysburg Address,” Cameron said. “So in other words, four score and a bazillion classes later, I am still pursuing my dreams.”
Cameron has no specific timeline about when she will graduate from Cal with her journalismdegree, but she hopes that with the support of her family she will graduate within the next two years, but even then she is not sure she will be ready to step out from behind the bar.
“I may hold onto bartending until there is greater stability,” Cameron said. “And I am OK with that, provided I do not stagnate.”
Someday Cameron hopes to have a column in a newspaper or magazine in which she can voice her opinions to a large audience or perhaps do some freelancing. Until then, bartending is going to allow her to keep her people (and interview) skills polished.
“Bartending is reaching out loud live and in person,” Cameron said. “Writing is reaching out with thought and consideration. It’s all a matter of semantics.”
Taylor Brown is a junior at California University of Pennsylvania,
where she is majoring in journalism with a minor in creative writing. See her
website at taylorshareebrown.weebly.com.