From ‘Sister Cork’ to commencement

BY HELENA KNUTSON

Marketing Executive

Payton Long has been wearing a mask for the last two years. It wasn’t until she stood on that all-too-familiar stage that she finally unveiled herself.

Originally from Tennessee, Payton Long came to Tarleton a few years after her family moved to Fort Worth. Long was drawn to Tarleton because of its values.

“I really only toured Tarleton, and then I toured UNT also, but the difference in their campuses drew me more here. Tarleton was just right off the bat very friendly, very family oriented, very small. I used to live in Tennessee, and Stephenville just really reminded me of where I used to live. I just immediately fell in love with it. I loved the small town feel, and it was also close enough to where I could go home. That was really meaningful to me,” Long said.

The Purple Poo have been a long standing tradition at Tarleton State University for the past 103 years. This organization, also known as TTS and TTP—the Ten Tarleton Sisters and the Ten Tarleton Peppers—selects 20 members each year to embody one of the original Poo.

For Long, she got the honor of becoming “Sister Cork.” However, becoming a Poo isn’t the only way Long got involved in this long standing tradition. Long was also voted in as the TTS president.

“I had to organize a lot of when we go to Duck Camp and stuff like that. Just organizing our meeting structure and communication with each other and communication with the school. We were the first line of communication as TTS president and then TTP, which was Bo Thompson at the time. We kind of represented the organization as a whole,” Long said.

One of the traditions that comes with being a Purple Poo is the secrecy of who is behind the mask. For most people, it may seem difficult to hide your identity for two years, but for Long, it was a learning experience.

“It was pretty difficult and challenging, but it really taught me to manage my time and to set my priorities straight to make sure that I had time to do my classwork, to go to the library study, but also spend time with my friends and also grow my relationship with my brothers and sisters and the Poo,” Long said.

Long balanced this duty with being a full-time student majoring in kinesiology.

“I have always loved giving back to people and helping people. I’m going to UMHB [University of Mary Hardin-Baylor]  for their physical therapy program this fall. I’m currently a tech in a physical therapy clinic. I’ve been an athlete, so I’ve loved the kinesiology, sports stuff, and physical therapy kind of just drew me in to be able to help people and make them more knowledgeable about how to move their bodies,” Long said.

But as many of us know, school can be hard, and balancing a whole load of classes can make taking the next step in your career challenging.

“I kind of struggled with all the sciences and prereqs for PT school, and I was debating if I wanted to do it, or if I wanted to go to PTA school and not go through the hard sciences, but I talked to one of my mom’s friends, who was a PT, and she really encouraged me to just keep going and keep pushing through and I did, so we’re going to PT school,” Long said.

Along with her outstanding academics, which have placed her on the Dean’s and President’s Lists, and her involvement in Tarleton traditions, Long is also actively involved in her sorority, Delta Zeta, where she served as philanthropy assistant, social and sisterhood chair and fundraising.

“I think it helped me definitely step outside my comfort zone and meet new people. And I think that coming to a college was the biggest. The thing that helped with the transition was being able to have that group and always know that I had those people,” Long said. “I was able to have those leadership roles and kind of be creative, and I love being creative and being artsy. That was a lot of fun and being able to communicate with other people and other organizations and my sisters.”

All of this love for leadership and service came from Long’s time as a TTM where she helped mentor the incoming freshman class at Duck Camp for summer 2022.

“I loved being a mentor and stuff like that. I was able to step out of my comfort zone and be silly and goofy, but obviously that helped me down the line with being a Purple Poo, too,” Long said. “I was able to connect with a lot of people that I don’t think that I would have ever talked to through the TTM program and being able to just mentor the freshman incoming class was such a blessing. I still talk to a lot of my baby ducks today.”

Being at Tarleton, Long was able to experience so many different opportunities as a student, a Poo and a sister.

“I really don’t have any regrets of what I wish I could have done because I got to experience Tarleton through a whole different lens of being just a normal student and experiencing the sorority life, the typical student, and everything before I was in the Poo. Then I got to see a whole different lens of being in the Poo and how much of an influence that is just on the student body and the Stephenville Community as a whole,” Long said.

All of Long’s hard work and involvement have allowed her to make an impact on Tarleton and its students.