Brody Dunn, Abigail Felknor, Andrew Felknor, Grady Floyd, Erik Mundy, Joshua Overholt and Jeremiah Ratcliffe
Contributors
In early November, Riverbend News employees visited homeschool students in a journalism class at Wellborn Baptist Church. The paper’s editor, ad designer and sports reporter talked to students about their jobs at Riverbend News. The Riverbend mentors showed students how they could have fun with, and participate in, journalism.
Lucy Golub, the ad designer, told students she felt like God had been preparing her for this job her entire life. She used to work in manufacturing, designing the bags used for animal feed, which gave her the experience to design the ads that bring in money to print the paper.
Golub and the others taught the homeschooled co-op students that there are job opportunities even in their age-group.
Danny Federico, the paper’s editor, applied for the reporter position at the age of 23. With the encouragement of friends and family, Federico applied for the job and, within a year was promoted to editor.
This visit was one way in which the Riverbend team builds relationships with the community.
Federico and Lee Trawick, the paper's sports reporter, think one of the fun parts of their job is having people come by to ask them to check out strange things they think are going on. According to them, part of the job is to hold the politicians and other public figures in town accountable.
They also gave the students information on how to write for the newspaper, how to interview for stories and how to get stories. Trawick, in particular, gave the students a bit of advice. He suggested they should think about the impact the story would have on people, as well as alternative perspectives.
They also invited the students to report on their visit, making the students feel like they won the chance of a lifetime.