Rebecca Evon, Jesse Daro and Sunny Hawkins have one major thing in common – they’re all names for the same person.
Rebecca Evon, a young girl of a “sunny” disposition born to Pentecostal parents, grew up in Red Hill, Ill.
Jesse Daro, author of “Skin,” “Blood” and “Bones,” a sci-fi trilogy of alien shapeshifters, and “Guarding Jericho,” a book written in two short weeks, earned her M.A. and Ph.D. in English at SIU Carbondale.
Sunny Hawkins, a woman whose favorite book series are “The Lord of the Rings” and “Harry Potter,” converted to Wicca at 17 for its appreciation of nature.
The individual behind these three personas is Sunny Hawkins, USI English assistant professor.
Though she was born Rebecca Evon, she later legally adopted the name Sunny.
“Sunny is a nickname I have been known by for years,” Hawkins said. “It’s one of those things that just kind of became me. It was like choosing an identity in a way you don’t get to when you’re born – when your parents just randomly name you – and it felt more like me. But (the name my parents gave me) was beautiful.”
Hawkins grew up on a small family farm, where she learned to ride horses instead of bicycles. Beyond learning on the farm, her parents made it clear that education didn’t end upon graduating high school, and with their support, Hawkins was a first-generation college student.
“My parents were never intolerant of people based on race, or gender, or sexual identity,” Hawkins said. “My dad always told me I could do anything I wanted to do, even though I was a girl.”
So Hawkins started doing what she wanted to do with the encouragement of a very literate household.
“I always loved to write stories,” Hawkins said. “When I was eight, my mom took out her old typewriter and put it in my room, and I started writing stories. Bless her heart – she read a lot of terrible, terrible stories as I was growing up.”
Moving beyond a typewriter, Hawkins digitally self-published four novels, which can be found under her pen name or alter ego, Jesse Daro, which she uses to separate her creative and academic work.
Feeling at home in her English classes led Hawkins to earn a doctorate in English, even with the uncertainty of where it would lead her.
“I had this sort of vague idea of going to New York City, living in Greenwich Village, and having a cat named Shakespeare while I wrote the next great American novel,” Hawkins said.
Instead of Greenwich Village and Shakespeare, Hawkins chose USI and a dog named Isabella in 2007.
USI was one of the first to offer Hawkins a job, she said.
Hawkins interviewed at San Francisco State, the University of Texas and Rose-Hulman, but she said USI attracted her with its emphasis on teaching.
“I love my research, but I think of myself primarily as a teacher,” Hawkins said. “USI is very focused on that and (is) focused on helping you develop as a teacher.”
While Hawkins is proud of the growing campus, she also loves the type of students USI attracts.
“I like that we have a lot of students who are willing to get outside of the box,” Hawkins said. “They are willing to experiment and take chances with their learning.”
She said she thinks students do not work as hard when they attend private universities because they are GPA- and performance-focused.
“They are afraid to fail, and failure is a necessary part in learning,” Hawkins said.
Some of her students refer to Hawkins as a hippie, she said, because she teaches in blue jeans with music in the background.
“My shoes are the first thing to come off when I get into the classroom – I can’t teach wearing shoes,” Hawkins said. “I’m also a big fan of moving the chairs out of the way, and all of us sitting on the ground and writing, or going out and finding a nice place to write and coming back into the class and sharing. I don’t know if that’s really unorthodox.”
Hawkins said she thinks her students partially refer to her as a hippie because she is Wiccan, which Hawkins emphasized is not a form of devil worshiping, as it is often thought to be.
She learned about the religion in high school and was attracted to its values.
“It was just such a beautiful and peaceful religion, and I really liked that,” Hawkins said. “I liked the emphasis on nature. I’ve always been very much about (sustainability) – before sustainability was a buzz word.”
Hawkins grew up on a farm and said she was always concerned about what people could do to protect the land.
“I had seen what happens to the environment when we don’t take care of it,” she said.
The Wiccan religion does not believe in proselytizing, and the only way Hawkins’s religious beliefs are manifested in her classroom is through her “hippie” disposition, she said. Hawkins bases her lessons on the needs and nature of her students.
“I very much believe in teaching to students rather than teaching material,” she said. “I try to design my classes around the people who are in them and figure out what the students need to learn.”
Hawkins said when students are in high school, there’s a lot of structure, and the focus is on repeating back information they’ve been told.
“Once you get to college, the idea behind writing is that you have your own ideas and something that you need to say,” she said.
Because of this change of ideas, Hawkins doesn’t limit topic choices, including those of abortion, legalizing marijuana and the death penalty.
“(Hawkins) helped me see that writing is more than writing to show off what you know, but that it’s a process of discovering what you know, too,” said Jake Kohlmeyer, senior English major.
Kohlmeyer has known Hawkins for around a year, having taken two of her writing courses.
“Dr. Sunny will take the time to listen to anyone,” Kohlmeyer said. “She’s probably the most open-minded and unique professor on our campus. Through her classes and getting to know her, I believe she’s taught me to be more open and more accepting of things – to really get out of my comfort zone. That applies to life and writing. Just as life isn’t always neat, writing doesn’t have to be neat.”
Hawkins is upfront and honest with her classes and doesn’t neglect her students, even when ill, Kohlmeyer said.
For over a decade Hawkins has lived with non-Hodgkins lymphoma – a form of cancer which originates in the lymphocytes, a type of white blood cell – and has experienced several remissions.
“Any student interested in learning something new, not just about writing, but about life and how we perceive the world will enjoy a class with Dr. Sunny,” Kohlmeyer said. “Sunny is challenging, but she cares. I can’t imagine a USI English department without Dr. Sunny. She is a key part of what makes that department tick.”
Amy Montz, English Assistant Professor, said Hawkins is her “bestie.”
Montz remembers seeing Hawkins’ smiling face in the back of the classroom while she presented research as part of her initial interviewing process at USI. After signing her job contract, Montz came to Hawkins with questions and noted how friendly Hawkins was.
Though Montz and Hawkins were friends before, they became closer during the past summer.
“We go and meet at Barnes & Noble a lot and have coffee,” Montz said. “It’s very rare that I’ll go through a day without talking to Sunny. She has a really great laugh, and you can’t not laugh when Sunny is laughing.”
Hawkins’s ability to embrace the world inspires her, Montz said, and Hawkins is the friend she can always call for help.
“She is fearless,” Montz said. “When she believes in someone and when she believes in something, she will defend it with teeth and nails. She is the person you want in your corner. She will support you. She will be there for you.”
