MY STORIES:

• The Kakehashi Project gives Utah brothers an opportunity to experience Japanese culture
• Experiencing Tea’s Memory: offering boba tea and fruit smoothies to a Utah community

MY BLOG:

The past several months have been filled with learning, discoveries, connections, realizations, epiphanies, and everything under the sun to overwhelm my mind constantly. More than ever before, I find myself asking questions that have no answer at this time, questions that make me think and strategize and wonder about the possibilities, yet none of these could be answered with anything reportable.

As I write news, I often think about how it might hinder my creativity in writing. Being strictly limited to facts and quotes poses a serious challenge for my story writing and makes me feel like my stories are not as eye-catching as I want them to be. I find that my freedom in writing news is not so much about the words I can use to reel the reader in, but it’s the story itself; research and experience and especially interviews can make my stories captivating.

Typing out two hours’ worth of an interview with one person is a daunting task, but I can’t help myself when there is so much to talk about and I really enjoy the conversations I get to be a part of. I was able to use details from my interviews to make connections within my story, using nothing but presenting facts and quotes.

The questions that have taken over my thought space involve my future. I’ve been nervous to graduate college because learning is what I want to do for a living. If I could get paid to be a student forever I wouldn’t think twice about it. The beauty of journalism is that’s exactly what I get to do — except books are replaced with real people and personal stories. I feel like I have a unique opportunity to observe and communicate stories in my community. Everyone lives for something, everyone has some reason they get out of bed every day and more often than not it’s things that the average person is completely unaware of. I realized this when I retired from my Drum Corps International career and started desperately missing the activity that kept me moving. With that piece of me missing it was difficult to do anything at all and finally it’s driving me toward the depths of my community and finding those stories within it.

I went to a friend whom I thought I knew a lot about and realized I will never really know what he knows. We all have crazy unique experiences that are bigger than us. In interviews with my friend, Mitch, I discovered so many story ideas and chose to report on an experience that was dear to him. In learning that story I discovered something that affected every aspect of Mitch’s personal life. Not to mention, it was a global project that does the same for hundreds of others, the very foundation created by people who were so dedicated to pass on these experiences and memories.

I now feel responsible to communicate these reasons to live in the form of stories. News is full of infinite possibilities, and I am in a place where I can be selective of my own education and share it with others.

ABOUT ME:

I was raised in Utah by a single mom, who taught me everything I know about hard work, integrity, dedication and more. I spent much of my childhood and high school days playing softball competitively. One day I had to give up that passion for another in marching band. I truly believe that the hobbies I practiced and the circumstances in which I was raised have shaped who I am today.

Coming home from softball tournaments was very nostalgic. It was normally a long drive home in a sandy uniform at some ungodly hour after the championship game. I was fortunate to be on one of the best teams on the West Coast, so I regularly came home with a trophy and some level of pride, unless it said anything about runner-up on the plaque. My grandfather used to tell me, “You only take first place. You get what’s left.” That is one thing that stuck with me to this day.

Memory is a hazy space. Much of my early years are blocked from my memory yet the idea of doing the best in anything I do was never forgotten. I remain focused and determined to perform at my greatest ability in anything I do. This has been the foundation of my work as a writer. Stories are the single greatest way to communicate memory. Without stories, those memories are lost forever. I have a mission to use these stories as evidence of real people’s real experiences.

I know everyone has something they live for, and I believe their story needs to be told. News today seems so repetitive, abundant in stories about legislative actions and auto accidents and movements, but the elements that make these stories important is missing. Someone is directly affected by these newsworthy stories, and those reasons are what people need to know about more than anything.

I studied journalism at the University of Utah so that I could bring unseen stories to the surface in order to create a more informed and community-oriented society. I saw 42 states in the U.S. during my study. My travels have confirmed the importance of storytelling, but I left my heart in Maryland. Since then, I’ve planned on making my way back to Baltimore to fulfill my need to share stories of the people around me.

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