EDUCATION
University of Missouri, Columbia
Bachelor of Journalism in Print and Digital News, December 2009
JOURNALISM EXPERIENCE
Various positions, Columbia Missourian, Columbia, Mo. August 2005 — Present
Writer/Reporter
* Covered Missouri’s 2008 football team. Broke news that all-american tight end Chase Coffman broke his finger and underwent surgery. Produced daily stories and features on team. Work highlighted daily on Missouri blog RockMNation.com.
* Covered the 2009 Missouri baseball team. Wrote feature “game stories” which showed a bigger picture than the actual score of the game. Wrote off-beat features on the team’s radio announcer and the rowdy student section at the Ole Miss Regional in Oxford, Miss.
* Wrote two front page profiles on Missouri athletes in the 2008 Beijing Olympics. My profile on wrestler Ben Askren showed how he had transformed in the last year. My story on shot-putter Christian Cantwell showed what motivates him.
* Generated story ideas and wrote enterprise stories on the small, basketball addicted town of Harrisburg, Mo., Rock Bridge legendary basketball coach Jim Scanlon and former Denver Nugget Linas Kleiza. The Harrisburg story received a Hearst Awards nomination for sports feature.
Copy Editor/Web Editor
* Copy edited stories, captions and slideshows for both print and Web using Missourian and AP Style on deadline.
* Posted breaking news, web stories and photos using Django Management system.
Columbia Encyclopedia development team
* On a management team that helped develop the business plan and operation procedures for a new Columbia, Mo.,
* Helped develop how users would contribute to the Web site, how the information would be vetted, how the Encyclopedia would be imbedded into the Web site and how the paper would market the Encyclopedia.
Multimedia Experience
* Created a Blog while covering the Missouri baseball team. Blog featured podcasts, video and interactive features. Built an audience of more than 500 regular readers in four months using basic HTML, audacity to create and edit audio and iMovie to edit video interviews.
Sports Intern, Independence Examiner, Independence, Mo. August 2004 — Present
* Deadline and feature writing throughout Kansas City metro area of high school sports including football, basketball, soccer, baseball and wrestling state championships while also writing feature stories for their sports magazine, SportsMonthly.
Features Writer, The Kansas City Star, Kansas City, Mo. August 2003— May 2005
* Feature reporting and idea development for Teen section of morning daily newspaper with circulation of 230,000.
* Won Youth Editorial Alliance (YEA) National Story of the Year award for a feature story on a basketball player whose best friend committed suicide his freshman year in high school.
* Won YEA second-place award in breaking news for a story on a plan to implement drug testing in a high school.
Freelance Writer, Various publications January 2002 — Present
* Covered the NAIA basketball tournament in Kansas City for the New Orleans Times-Picayune, the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal and the Marietta Daily Journal on very tight deadlines because of the unusual schedule the tournament has.
* Worked for the Denver Post, Springfield News-Leader and the Southeast Missourian in Columbia doing game stories, statistics, features and sidebars on deadline.
OTHER EXPERIENCE
Client Relations Assistant Manager, Faber and Brand Law Firm, Columbia, Mo May 2007 — September 2009
* Supervised three employees. Selected future employees, served as a mentor to new employees, trained new employees and formed relationships with clients to further business opportunities.
* Provided customer service in helping clients with their cases at a Columbia, Mo., law firm using e-mail, phone, electronic interfaces and paper updates.
* Responsible for creating new automated e-mail creation system, maintaining how-to guides, and a member of firm’s development team for new ideas and how to increase business.
SKILLS
* Design: Experience using Adobe InDesign for news pages and magazine layouts and basic HTML ability for Web design.
* Audio: Experience using Audacity audio editing software to produce podcasts and edit interviews.
* Video: Experience shooting and editing film using iMovie HD and Final Cut Pro.
* Photo: Experience with DSLR cameras. Took basic photography class in high school. Basic understanding of Adobe Photoshop.
