"I love shopping. I would like to have a new purse every week if I could," Vann said with a laugh. "I have given away quite a few purses and sold them at garage sales so I can buy more purses."
Vann said she goes shopping with her daughter, Suzette, who is in the ninth grade at Sallisaw High School. "We shop for purses," Suzette replied with a grin.
Vann also has a son, Derek, married to Ashley, and two grandchildren, Ashlynn and Mashyia.
Vann said she is teaching her three-year-old granddaughter Mashyia to shop. "Mashyia knows what I mean when I say, 'Let's go shopping.' She is ready and already has three purses of her own," she said.
Vann said she also likes to take her parents shopping, because her mother doesn't drive.
"After I graduated from Gore High School I went to Connors State College in Warner and was dispatching for the town of Gore with the Cherokee Summer Youth program. Later the district attorney office needed a worker and I started working there," Vann said.
"My boss John Russell let me go to school and work part time," Vann said.
"I wanted to be a certified dietician, but after working in the district attorney's office I switched my major to criminal justice," Vann said. "I graduated from Connors with a associate's degree in criminal justice.
"After two years at the district attorney's office I started working in the court clerk's office and have been there for about 16 years and I love my job."
"About four years ago my parents and I was shopping in Tahlequah and drove past Northeastern State University. My mom asked me 'How much more college do you need to get your bachelor's degree?,'" Vann said. "I told her I didn't know but I guess it was about two or three years."
She told her daughter she needed to go back to school and get her bachelor's degree in criminal justice. "So I did, I have been working full time for the court clerk office and going to school at night to get my degree," she said. " I should graduate in May with a bachelor's degree in criminal justice - law enforcement."
Vann said she has four brothers and two sisters and she is the baby of the family. "My three older brothers had already graduated high school and were gone by the time I was born. My sisters, younger brother and I are all two years apart," Vann said.
"We are a close family and we get together for the holidays. We also all go camping together on Labor Day weekend," she said.
"I grew up in a traditional Cherokee home and my mom taught me to cook traditional Cherokee dishes, which I am teaching my daughter," Vann said. "I am proud to be a Cherokee Indian."
