Maryville native earns degree after overcoming violence, homelessness
By Tracey Hackett
May 16, 2024; 2:48 p.m.

Kristyn Bannon (center) celebrates her graduation at Tech's May 3 commencement ceremony with family and friends. Kristyn hugs her son, Noah, as her uncle, James, and best friend, Jessica, look on.

COOKEVILLE, TN - When Maryville native Kristyn Bannon began her higher education journey, she said she felt like everything in her life was going wrong. Walking across the stage at Tennessee Tech University on Friday to receive her bachelor’s degree in elementary education was a sign that things were changing.

"Now, I feel like everything in my life is finally starting to go right,” she said.

When Bannon enrolled in the 2+2 program at Pellissippi State Community College in 2019, she had no idea that her path would include a pregnancy, escaping alleged domestic violence, homelessness and more.

Now that she’s completed the program – a partnership between Tech and state community colleges to train qualified teachers for local communities across the state – she said those experiences gave her skills that will benefit her in a classroom setting.

But the nontraditional student said she didn’t know when she graduated high school that education was for her.

“When I was a high school student, I didn’t take learning seriously,” she said.

That is, until she began working as a substitute teacher and then teacher’s assistant for special education at Mary Blount Elementary School in Blount County.

“Then I knew education was where my heart was,” Bannon said.

Two weeks after she signed up for the 2+2 program, however, she found out she was pregnant with her daughter, Gracelyn. Her son, Noah, was only four at the time.

“I took a semester off to have her, and even before that, I had a high-risk pregnancy. I was vitamin B-12 deficient, and my blood pressure bottomed out and made me feel faint. I ended up having to leave campus in an ambulance to go to the hospital,” Bannon said.

After that, she was on bed rest but managed to attend courses by having a classmate Facetime her so she could virtually “attend” the lectures. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, virtual programs like Zoom and Microsoft Teams were not as widely used at many educational institutions as they are today.

After her daughter was born, Bannon said she decided to leave the situation of domestic violence.

“I didn’t want my daughter to grow up thinking that’s normal treatment for women, and I didn’t want my son thinking it’s okay to treat anyone that way,” she said.

Bannon had been a stay-at-home mom, so without a job and the resources that provides, she and her children stayed with their “nana” for a month until Bannon discovered Family Promise of Blount County.

“Someone had told me that’s a place that could probably help me, but I didn’t know anything about it or what it was about,” she said.

It was a homeless shelter and transitional housing facility that became a home and lifeline for Bannon and her children for a year and a half, while she found work – which wasn’t easy by that time, during the pandemic – and finished her associate's degree.

“We were out of the domestic violence situation, but the stalking and harassment didn’t stop when we moved out. There were times I’d have to leave the classroom because he was blowing up my phone, and I didn’t know how to make it stop,” Bannon said. “That cycle of abuse continued until about a year ago.”

Bannon said she made it a point to explain her situation to her instructors on a need-to-know basis, and they were always understanding.

“If it weren’t for the kindness and grace they gave me, both the Pellissippi State and Tennessee Tech professors, I think I would have given up two years ago, before I ever came close to earning my bachelor’s degree. And I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think about quitting every single month for the last five years – but my momma didn’t raise a quitter, and I had to be a positive role model for my kids,” Bannon added.

The hardest part, she said, was having to spend so much time away from her children when they were at such a young age.

“Even though I had to give up a lot of time with them to go to school, hold a job and do other necessary things to take care of them, I hope the biggest lesson they learn from my example is that they can accomplish whatever they believe they can,” she said.

Bannon has even found love again, in a healthy relationship with a man who adores her children and who they adore too, she said.

“Being in such a bad relationship was a lesson in what characteristics I don’t want and do want in a partner, and he checks all the boxes,” she said.

She wasn’t expecting that to be on the menu of the coffee shop she’d stopped at that morning, though.

“He was in line behind me, and we struck up a conversation. It was a rare day off for me, and we ended up spending the whole day together, getting to know each other. Five months later, he met my kids,” she said.

When Bannon looks back on how much she accomplished in five years, she said, the reality is just now setting in about how far she’s come.

“I’m beginning to believe that I am good enough and to realize how far I’ve come and how far I’m going to go,” she said.