Her Purdue Story

After graduating from Purdue she moved across the country to Texas to attend law school. Not knowing anyone she soon found that a friend from her freshman year at Purdue lived in the same apartment complex. What a small world! She then found an alumni club in Houston and realized that there is a Purdue family everywhere you go. 

After graduating law school she moved again. This time to Denver, Colorado where she didn't know anyone. However, she knew to find the alumni club and very quickly made another little Purdue family that made a new city feel like home. She also decided she wanted to start giving back and began volunteering for the local alumni club. Eventually she ended up becoming the President of the Colorado Alumni club helping to reignite membership, increase engagement and find the Purdue alumni bar which remains the Boilermaker spot over a decade later! 

Since that first club experience she knew that she wanted to continue finding ways to volunteer and give back to Purdue. She continued to move for her career returning to the Midwest and moving to Fort Wayne, Indiana where she started volunteering for the local alumni club. An opportunity arose again to step into a leadership with the club and she took on her first club president role for a club within the state of Indiana. Eventually her career moved her to Ohio and she settled in Columbus, Ohio of all places where she learned that even in the heart of buckeye country there is a Purdue family. Again, an opportunity arose and she became the president of the alumni club of Central Ohio. Leading an alumni club for any Big Ten school that is not Ohio State in Columbus, Ohio was challenging but it also helped her to grow roots in the city where she met her spouse and started her family. Each year Karissa and a group of fellow Purdue alumni from Columbus, Ohio travel back to attend the Boilermaker Ball and escape all the buckeye fans!

In 2024 Karissa was able to go to Phoenix and watch Purdue play in the Final Four and National Championship. It felt like a giant Purdue family reunion. She was able to reunite with those fellow club leaders and members from every place she had lived. And although the Boilermaker's path to the national championship was amazing, the ability to reunite with all of her alumni friends she had met all over the country for the last 15 years was a memory she will never forget! Also in 2024 Karissa was able to take a road trip back to Purdue with her oldest son and spend a weekend exploring Purdue, meeting Purdue Pete, and visiting the sites from the book Purdue Pete Finds His Hammer (her son's favorite book).