Moving Closer to Home

When Justin and Mellissa Crosswhite saw the chance to move closer to family, they knew they had to jump on the opportunity.

The two are instructors within the Oklahoma State University Department of Animal and Food Sciences, where they teach and advise the freshmen and sophomore students in the department.

“I am an Oklahoma native and graduated from OSU,” Justin Crosswhite said. “I moved to the University of Florida to get my master’s degree.”

Mellissa Crosswhite was also at the University of Florida finishing her bachelor’s degree, he said.

“We have been in the same building for most of our relationship,” he said. “It would be more of an adjustment for us if we didn’t work together and see each other all day.”

Although they work next door to one another, the Crosswhites consider this normal.

“We definitely have times where we are working on totally different things,” Mellissa Crosswhite said. “We have similar duties, but we teach different classes. Justin is more on the meat science side of things, and I am a reproductive physiologist.”

Both husband and wife advise different clubs and have different obligations. These differences keep a certain amount of their jobs separate, but they do bounce ideas off of each other, she said.

“There is more of an investment, which leads to better communication when we talk about work at home,” Justin Crosswhite said. “We know what the other person is talking about and who they are talking about. We can relate to each other and understand most situations the other is experiencing.”

They also ride to work together most days when they do not have to advise a club meeting or have other work obligations, he said. “We work well together,” Mellissa Crosswhite said. “It seems like people refer to us as the Crosswhites more than they refer to us as individuals.

“I don’t know that this could work for everyone, but it works for us,” she said. “We stay busy and lead separate lives, but at the end of the day we are there for each other.”