Shannan Debus is brimming with intelligence and honesty. She is a strong-willed young woman who follows her dreams and intuitions, no matter where they lead her. She was born in Buffalo, N.Y., and spent most of her life in New York state. She came from a poor, hardworking family.
“We got by,” she said, “and I learned from them that you don’t get things handed to you.”
Shannan was disillusioned at an early age by the New York public school system. The other students at her Ithaca high school were mostly wealthy, the children of parents who worked at Cornell University.
“Those kids could act any kind of way; they didn’t have the reverence for education you would expect. They had no discipline,” she said. “Poor people respect education because they want their children to do better.”
She knew she wanted out of high school as soon as possible and, under her own initiative, she researched the qualifications for an Advanced Regents Diploma. She attended summer sessions, completed college-level courses, and passed her exams but still wasn’t permitted to graduate early. She decided she’d be better off at the public library, and she skipped her last year of school to bury herself in the stacks to pursue the subjects that inspired her. Ecology, anthropology and history were among her interests.
“I made sure I got a good education,” she said.
Her mother was furious when she found out Shannan had stopped attending school. She kicked her out of the house, and Shannan spent the next four months in state custody, held in a juvenile detention center without charges.
“I had no rights,” Shannan said. “Kids brought in on felony charges had access to lawyers and court dates and resources. They had more options than kids like me, who were just signed over with no criminal record, no arrest, nothing wrong except being 17 and not in school.”
After she left state custody, Shannan lived on the streets and struggled with a heroin addiction. She managed to kick her habit and save up for a bus ticket to fulfill her dream of going to South Dakota to visit the native grasslands.
“I love grassland ecology,” she said. “The native grasses have deep roots that hold the soil together.”
She met her boyfriend, Woods, in Bismark, and they worked fast-food jobs together during the cold winters.
“I liked being out in the middle of nowhere at first, but we were going to be working fast-food forever if we didn’t get going,” she said, so they took off for Seattle and eventually made it to Portland.
“We got off the bus that first day and found Blanchet House,” she said. “Some guys said to go to Street Roots for a resource guide, so we did and ended up going through orientation.”
Shannan and Woods now sell newspapers at Southwest Salmon Street and Ninth Avenue.
“We’ve done better than I expected,” she said. “I like Street Roots. I think the articles are good. In general, I like news sources that haven’t been bought like CNN and FOX.”
They plan to stay with Street Roots for the foreseeable future.
But Shannan’s long-term plans are inspired by her abiding passion.
“I want to go to the Siberian steppes, one of the word’s greatest grasslands. And if I could find the money to travel to Patagonia, I might get to work on a grasslands restoration project, turning them into national parks.
“I’m crazy enough that I might actually get there,” she said with a smile.