Inside a navy blue F-150 stationed in a state park in Texas, the cloth seat of the passenger’s side is stocked up on water and protein bars. Having just pulled into one of the last locations on his list, a sense of urgency starts to set in. John Sorsby, business management alumnus, is “racing darkness.”
Sorsby traveled to all 88 Texas state parks within one year. He documented his travels on social media and grew to 139,000 Instagram followers as of Jan. 12. Sorsby visited seven to eight parks a month to stay on schedule and met his goal of traveling to all Texas state parks from his birthday on Oct. 14, 2023 to Oct. 14, 2024, creating 90-second videos using his iPhone and tripod from beginning to end.
Sorsby has a list of objectives he wants to accomplish in his lifetime, and he credits his ambition largely to his supportive family. He said this state parks feat is not the first project he’s taken on, and his family stayed close throughout his different goals.
“I’ve always had that belief I could create the life I wanted, and I could make the impact in the world that I wanted to from my little piece of it,” Sorsby said. “I’m definitely trying to make the most of the time that I know we have here on earth and live life on my own terms. That’s always been a goal of mine even before doing the state parks, just all the different things I’ve pursued over the years personally and professionally.”
Lanita Legan, now retired, was the Associate Director of the LBJ Student Center when Sorsby worked there. Legan is familiar with his recent work making videos and traveling around Texas.
“One of the things that I learned real early after knowing John a little bit was that he’s very goal oriented,” Legan said. “It would be very clear that whatever he did on campus, whether it was leadership responsibilities or on-campus jobs, all of those things are going to feed into the things that he was passionate about and the things that he had set goals for himself.”