posted                   

quote:

---

Profile of Farmgirl (I'm having trouble coming up with a good title for this! Suggestions?)

Farmgirl knows news, she knows animals, she knows farms and she knows Kansas, but most of all, she knows people. And that’s what she loves to write about. “People just like to read about other people,” says the 43-year-old journalist and farmer.

For the past 12 years, Farmgirl has been writing for the Mount Hope Clarion, a weekly paper that serves most of Sedgwick County, Kan., where Farmgirl has lived her entire life. “Working for a weekly gives me an opportunity to write all types of stories,” she says. “But I prefer human interest. My favorite story was a short piece I did about a local officer who saved a woman’s life by realizing she was in diabetic shock.”

Farmgirl never intended to be a journalist. “I wanted to be a scientist, maybe a botanist or a biologist. But then my English teachers began raving over my writing,” says Farmgirl. “I was offered a journalism scholarship, and that’s when I first considered just being a journalist.” Farmgirl went to the University of Kansas and later wrote for the student newspaper at Friends University in Wichita, Kan.

She loved photography more than journalism, so originally she wanted to be a photojournalist. “But I soon found out there were lots more photographers than there were good writers,” she says. “More people would buy my photos if there was a story attached. So it just gradually went that direction.” She spent some time writing for the Wichita Eagle, the large daily paper in the city, but eventually found herself happier writing for small weeklies like the Halstead Independent and the Mount Hope Clarion.

Although she still writes freelance pieces, Farmgirl recently left journalism to pursue a more lucrative career so she could support her family. But she says the skills she’s learned over the years will help her no matter what she pursues. “What I have learned in journalism, writing, and marketing will always apply to anything I decide to do,” she says.

What words of advice can she offer to a young journalist just starting out? “Be willing to get experience just about anywhere. Start small. Be willing to accept criticism from people who have been in the business a lot longer than you,” she says. “But most important: read, read, read! You learn to write by recognizing good writing.”

What does she suggest? Farmgirl reads the daily newspaper, local weeklies, Reader’s Digest, and National Geographic. For her to read a book more than once, it has to be really good. “I’ve read Animal Farm by George Orwell and Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card twice,” she says. “But I can’t pick just one favorite.”

Now, Farmgirl lives in a hundred-year-old white wood frame farmhouse and spends the typical Saturday afternoon tending the garden, playing baseball or riding horses with her three teenage children. “My farm is the love of my life,” she says. “My dream job is to be a self-sufficient farmer or rancher.”

In the meantime, Farmgirl takes heart in the words from her favorite song, “I Hope You Dance,” by Lee Ann Womack. “If I could give my children a single bit of wisdom, I would say to never lose your sense of wonder, and when you feel like giving up, reconsider,” she says.

For Farmgirl, journalism has never been about news or sports or weather. It’s been about the people of Sedgwick County, Kan. She might not yet have her dream job, but she is exactly where she wants to be. Where would she live if she could live anywhere in the world? Without hesitation she says, “Right where I am.”

---

Posts: 1784 | Registered: Jun 2001  |  IP: Logged |