Alberson leaves AU with more than a degree

By Deborah Lilly

When Frank Alberson came to Anderson University five years ago, he expected to find a place to live among his peers, academic challenges, and a chance for a better future. When he left the campus in December with his bachelor's degree in criminal justice, he'd found all of those things. What he didn't expect was a family to usher him through his college experience and into the rest of his life.

Without a family of his own, Alberson moved to Triple L Youth Center in Anderson, Ind., at age 17 to begin the transition to independent living. He eventually moved out and got a job with the university's Physical Plant cutting grass in the summer and housekeeping in the winter. One day he decided to join the college student population and applied to AU.

Alberson moved out of his apartment and into the dorm with the other freshmen. It wasn't an easy step. He worried about succeeding academically. He worried about making new friends. "I'm shy at first, especially in a new place around new people," he explains. But he made an effort by attending all of the freshman orientation activities.

One of his new friends was Trent Ward, an upperclassman from Oklahoma. Ward began asking Alberson about his plans for the Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks. "I didn't really have a home to go back to," Alberson admits, but he turned Ward down anyway by saying he had to stick around and work. "I didn't want to intrude." But Ward was persistent. By Christmas Alberson agreed to spend the holidays with the Ward family.

Ward's family thought as much of Alberson as Trent did. They invited Alberson to come back in the summer and offered him a job on their ranch. Alberson was skeptical of the attention at first. "I've always had trouble trusting people and getting close to people," Alberson explains. "I wondered why these people were being so nice to me. I thought, 'I don't have anything to offer.'" But the Wards' hospitality made a great impression on him. Before long Oklahoma was Alberson's home, and the Ward family was his family.

Academically, Alberson continued to train for a career as a police officer through his criminal justice classes, while also taking classes to satisfy a new interest in business. He spent a summer interning at a drug-counseling program that served underprivileged youth in Oklahoma City. He successfully completed physical and written tests for the Oklahoma City Police Depart-ment. But Alberson was also learning lessons from his new family.

"I still had a lot of problems to work through," admits Alberson, "and they helped me grow up." They encouraged him, supported him, and allowed him to experience the love, compassion, and fairness found in a Christian home. They showed him positive ways of dealing with the problems he'd learned to bottle up inside himself. "They stuck with me and didn't quit when times got hard. They showed me that there are people who can be trusted."

In May Alberson and his Oklahoma family will return to AU to watch him graduate. "If it hadn't been for them, I wouldn't have made it through college. I would have dropped out," he says. "I've been blessed."