Williams Lake has a new speech pathologist from Colorado.
“We arrived on Jan. 1 and I love it," Sharon Jamison told the Tribune. "I’m so excited to be here."
Born in Missouri, she has lived in various communities in the U.S. including in New Mexico and Texas.
Sharon and her sister went to college together and it was her sister who was interested in the field of speech language pathology first.
“She decided she did not like it, but I decided I did, so I switched majors,” Sharon said.
Once she’d completed her training, her work took her to schools and hospitals.
In Wiliams Lake she works with children from birth to five-years-old.
“They make great progress in such a short period of time,” she said of young children. “They are just such fun and have such a fresh perspective on life.”
The focus of her work is to help families and caregivers know what they need to know so they can support their children.
She tells parents she’s not there to fix their children because the parents know their children better than she does.
“They spend far more time with the child than I ever will and if I can teach them a few easy things that fit into their lifestyle and their values to support their child’s language and speech development their child typically makes huge progress.”
Her office is on the second floor of the white government building on Borland Street where Service BC and the courthouse are.
Speech language pathology is part of the speech, hearing and dental clinic offered by IH.
Her position had been vacant almost 14 months so she is in the process of working through the wait list and trying to start therapy up for the families that have not been able to get services.
The work environment is “wonderful” and her coworkers are all very professional, she said.
“We work incredibly well together, it’s been pretty seamless trying to shift into this work environment and it’s primarily because they are so easy to work with.”
Choosing Williams Lake was easy and happened because she and her husband, John, wanted a new adventure in life.
They have a blended family - she has two children and he has two children - and all of their children have said they don’t plan on having children themselves.
“I said, ‘OK, I better get my little kid fix," which is another reason they moved to Williams Lake for her job.
Prior to making the move they had done several trips in Canada, enjoying camping and hiking.
"When we were younger we would backpack.”
Williams Lake was further north than they’d ventured before, but she had a strong desire to see the Northern Lights and explore the area.
“It’s a wonderful pick,” she said of the Cariboo. “The climate here is spot-on perfect for me.”
In March 2024, she began applying for the job, and was excited when Interior Health contacted her for an interview.
One of the people on the interview team told Jamison she intended to stay in Williams Lake for two years and stayed for 30.
“I asked her why she stayed and she said, ‘it’s the community.’ And that is the number one thing I like about Williams Lake too.”
Sharon said she has moved a lot and “it is a rare situation to find a location where it has that feeling of community where it feels like the people enjoy being here and they support one another and they interact with one another, like a community.”
It did not take Jamison and her husband long to become involved in Williams Lake either.
She joined the Quintet Plus Choir and is excited about joining the Williams Lake Field Naturalists.
John has turned into a social butterfly, she added, explaining he has already joined the mountain biking club, volunteers at the Seniors Activity Centre, has ben making drums with a neighbour, doing woodworking with another neighbour and taking ukulele lessons.
“There are so many things to do her," she said. "I enjoy sewing and could join a sewing group. I play clarinet and there’s the community band. The people are so friendly and so excited to have us here and to have us join the community. That’s an amazing thing.”
