Talor Allen, a Roxboro Community School (RCS) alumna, has had an impressive career since high school. From Capitol Hill to a presidential campaign, Allen has worked her way up to her current position as a Policy Advisor for the Homeland Security Council in the White House.
Allen graduated from RCS in 2016 and then attended the University of Alabama (UA), where she majored in political science. While in college, she certainly made her mark on her school. Putting her political science studies into use, she became the first female speaker of the Student Senate at UA. She also gained valuable management experience as the president of her sorority. Before she graduated, she interned at the White House in the Office of Cabinet Affairs in 2019, an experience that became a pivotal moment for her. Allen said, “I’ve known I wanted to do it [be involved in politics] since the first day I walked in the door in 2019 and knew I had to go back.”
After graduating from college in 2020, Allen worked on President Trump’s campaign in media affairs. After that election, she went to work on Capitol Hill for a member of Congress from Alabama as his Director of Operations. She then returned to Alabama to work in the same congressman’s Alabama office where she got to interact with a variety of people. “It was an incredible perspective because some days you were with state leaders, and other days with constituents, the people you’re serving in D.C.,” said Allen. After returning to D.C. in 2022, she started working for a consulting firm specializing in defense, where she traveled to various Air Force bases around the country to consult with them. Then, in March of this year, she began working at her current position in the White House. While her work experience has been incredibly varied, a key connection according to Allen is service. “You’re serving people in each of these roles,” she said. “It’s your primary responsibility and doing what is right by the people.”
For all that she has achieved today, she still looks back fondly on her time at RCS and the relationships she cultivated here. Allen cites Wanda Ball, a former RCS English teacher, as being very instrumental in her education. “She taught me how to write,” Allen said. “I felt fully prepared for what came next, fully prepared for college because of RCS and Mrs. Ball.”
From her time at RCS and throughout her career, a yearning for community has persisted. “The focus on building community that I learned at RCS has guided the way I interact with everyone from coworkers to friends today. In a city like D.C., that sense of community is an invaluable asset,” said Allen. Regardless of where she lives, Allen still manages to create the feeling of community wherever she goes. During her 2019 internship at the White House, she remembers being the very first person to make a group chat because she wanted to connect with her peers. A day later, she was given the general piece of advice to not be the one to make the group chat by one of the intern coordinators. In retrospect, she shared she would have absolutely made the same choice even after hearing that advice. “I wouldn’t have changed a thing,” she shared. “My advice would be to make the group chat and find the community.”