!["Where I grew up [on my family farm] 100% shaped who I am. In fact, my son and I were talking about high schools and how big his is. His high school population is double the population of the town I grew up in. I had 20 kids in my graduating class, and three of them were foreign exchange students. He asked me, 'Do you wish you would have gone to a bigger school like us?' And I said, 'Actually, no, I don't.' I loved where I grew up. I absolutely cherish what it instilled in me, and that's something I carry with me all the time. "The earliest lesson was that you are part of something much bigger than yourself. Everybody has an important role in what they're doing, no matter how small. I remember when we were bringing in the corn. Right now, everybody buys it, but I didn't buy corn until maybe college because it was a whole family thing. We went and picked the corn. The little kids would shuck it, pulling off all the silk. The grown-ups would shave it off the cob and then push it off to the side, and then the older kids would bag it up into plastic bags. And then everybody went home. It was always about a team. You can be the youngest person or the lowest-ranking person, but you always bring something important to that table. "Everywhere I've been since I got commissioned [as an Air Force officer], my very first office in 1997, I hang an aerial picture of our farm on my wall because it's [a reminder to] remember where you came from, remember home, and don't get too big for your britches. No matter what, you could be part of something huge, and I look at that picture and say, 'I have always been part of something much bigger than myself.' All the little, tiny moments in life that build upon themselves trace back to that family farm for me." Alana Johnson, Senior Communications Specialist, poses for a portrait, Wednesday, Feb. 7, 2024, at the Mary W. Jackson NASA Headquarters building in Washington. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)](https://images-assets.nasa.gov/image/NHQ202402070011/NHQ202402070011~medium.jpg)
"Where I grew up [on my family farm] 100% shaped who I am. In fact, my son and I were talking about high schools and how big his is. His high school population is double the population of the town I grew up in. I had 20 kids in my graduating class, and three of them were foreign exchange students. He asked me, 'Do you wish you would have gone to a bigger school like us?' And I said, 'Actually, no, I don't.' I loved where I grew up. I absolutely cherish what it instilled in me, and that's something I carry with me all the time. "The earliest lesson was that you are part of something much bigger than yourself. Everybody has an important role in what they're doing, no matter how small. I remember when we were bringing in the corn. Right now, everybody buys it, but I didn't buy corn until maybe college because it was a whole family thing. We went and picked the corn. The little kids would shuck it, pulling off all the silk. The grown-ups would shave it off the cob and then push it off to the side, and then the older kids would bag it up into plastic bags. And then everybody went home. It was always about a team. You can be the youngest person or the lowest-ranking person, but you always bring something important to that table. "Everywhere I've been since I got commissioned [as an Air Force officer], my very first office in 1997, I hang an aerial picture of our farm on my wall because it's [a reminder to] remember where you came from, remember home, and don't get too big for your britches. No matter what, you could be part of something huge, and I look at that picture and say, 'I have always been part of something much bigger than myself.' All the little, tiny moments in life that build upon themselves trace back to that family farm for me." Alana Johnson, Senior Communications Specialist, poses for a portrait, Wednesday, Feb. 7, 2024, at the Mary W. Jackson NASA Headquarters building in Washington. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)
Alana Johnson, NASA Communications, moderates a Psyche mission and science briefing at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Tuesday, Oct. 10, 2023. Psyche is the first mission to explore an asteroid with a surface that likely contains substantial amounts of metal rather than rock or ice. Liftoff of NASA’s Psyche spacecraft, atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, is targeted for 10:16 a.m. EDT Thursday, Oct. 12, from Kennedy’s Launch Complex 39A.
Alana Johnson, NASA Communications, moderates a Psyche mission and science briefing at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Tuesday, Oct. 10, 2023. Psyche is the first mission to explore an asteroid with a surface that likely contains substantial amounts of metal rather than rock or ice. Liftoff of NASA’s Psyche spacecraft, atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, is targeted for 10:16 a.m. EDT Thursday, Oct. 12, from Kennedy’s Launch Complex 39A.
A Psyche mission and science briefing takes place at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Tuesday, Oct. 10, 2023. Participants, from left, are: Alana Johnson, NASA Communications; Lori Glaze, Planetary Science division director, NASA Headquarters; Lindy Elkins-Tanton, Psyche principal investigator, Arizona State University; Ben Weiss, Psyche deputy principal investigator and magnetometer lead, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; David Oh, Psyche chief engineer for operations, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL); and Abi Biswas, Deep Space Optical Communications project technologist, JPL. Psyche is the first mission to explore an asteroid with a surface that likely contains substantial amounts of metal rather than rock or ice. Liftoff of NASA’s Psyche spacecraft, atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, is targeted for 10:16 a.m. EDT Thursday, Oct. 12, from Kennedy’s Launch Complex 39A.
A Psyche mission and science briefing takes place at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Tuesday, Oct. 10, 2023. Participants, from left, are: Alana Johnson, NASA Communications; Lori Glaze, Planetary Science division director, NASA Headquarters; Lindy Elkins-Tanton, Psyche principal investigator, Arizona State University; Ben Weiss, Psyche deputy principal investigator and magnetometer lead, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; David Oh, Psyche chief engineer for operations, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL); and Abi Biswas, Deep Space Optical Communications project technologist, JPL. Psyche is the first mission to explore an asteroid with a surface that likely contains substantial amounts of metal rather than rock or ice. Liftoff of NASA’s Psyche spacecraft, atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, is targeted for 10:16 a.m. EDT Thursday, Oct. 12, from Kennedy’s Launch Complex 39A.