We've kicked off the semester by getting to know a little bit about each other in class. (That's Jim
interviewing Troy in the photo.) Following the example of Julie Sullivan's very short profile on the toothless Joe Peak, I've asked each of you to get to know one classmate a little bit better by writing a 350-word biography.Take to heart William Strunk's tight-fisted approach to writing as relayed in Strunk and White's Elements of Style:
"Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer tmake all his centences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell."For your first assignment, please submit the first two paragraphs of your student biography as a comment to this post. You do that by clicking on the word comment at the bottom of this post. Submit the complete 350-word biography to me at inbox.nwhite@gmail.com. Be sure you put a byline and submission date on the full bio you send to me. Your gmail post name can be whatever you'd like.
After you've posted your bio-graphs, please read through other posts. Is there a lead or a style of lead that grabs you? Is there information you find that as a reader you really expect to get in the first couple of paragraphs? Check back closer to class time and read as many leads as you can. Come to class ready to talk about how you feel about these leads.
See you Wednesday.
-- Nadia
17 comments:
He stands about six feet tall, has blonde hair and wears a backward baseball cap. James Hepburn looks like a college student even though he hasn’t felt that way for quite some time.
Hepburn is back at the University of Montana after a semester hiatus in which he spent most of his time working construction in Bozeman, Montana. He is a Journalism major in his first semester in the professional program at the University of Montana.
P.S. Thank you Nadia. Upon closer inspection, I look like I want to reach over and stab Jimbo with whatever I am holding in my pocket. :p
Collin Behan sits in journalism classes now. But he hasn’t taken the traditional route to the School of Journalism. He wasn’t even going to come to the University of Montana.
Senior year of high school, Behan was set to go to Gonzaga University. Then he was diagnosed with Hogkins lymphoma cancer on St. Patrick’s Day in 2005.
Collin Behan sits in journalism classes now. But he hasn’t taken the traditional route to the School of Journalism. He wasn’t even going to come to the University of Montana.
Senior year of high school, Behan was set to go to Gonzaga University. Then he was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma cancer on St. Patrick’s Day in 2005.
(I misspelled Hodgkin's on the first post and I needed to correct it. Please ignore first post. Thank you.)
Collin Behan sits in journalism classes now. But he hasn’t taken the traditional route to the School of Journalism. He wasn’t even going to come to the University of Montana.
Senior year of high school, Behan was set to go to Gonzaga University. Then he was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma cancer on St. Patrick’s Day in 2005.
Shy at first when asking interview questions, Alaina Abbott quickly becomes animated.
She apologizes for the first question, laughs it off as foolish even though it isn’t. But as she gets into the crux of her interview she settles down, becomes focused. She writes quickly but follows along well. Her questions are prepared and intelligent.
Last summer, while college students across the country held undesirable jobs for the sake of the upcoming year’s rent, food, and party funds, Kyle Lahman veered away from such a path. Instead, he spent his vacation on an odyssey worthy of a Hollywood movie script. The best part: he didn’t even have a job.
“I only worked one day,” Lahman recalled, adding that it was merely landscaping for his landlord.
Nate Rott will tell you that he is doing everything he can these days to become a hillbilly.
The twenty-one year old Missoula native recently bought a banjo at a yard sale, enjoys wood carving, and loves the great outdoors. He's also acted in a children's play as 'Cyclone Sam,' a character that allowed him to indulge in a "cheesy, red-neck accent;" an experience that still has him warning others that a possible 'howdy' could slip unconsciously from his mouth at any time.
But this self-proclaimed hillbilly is unmistakably brighter than your average Joe...
Having two first names isn’t easy. Carmen George knows from 19 years of experience. “I’ve been paged at the doctor’s office as George Carmen,” George said, “And, kids always called me Curious George or Carmen Electra or Carmen San Diego.”
Despite her past razzing, George, a University of Montana junior is hoping to make a name for herself with her love and aptitude for journalistic writing. “I love to write journalism because it excites me and fuels me,” she said.
This week Steve Miller started his first semester in the University of Montana’s school of Journalism, but for the twenty-one year old junior the back to school grind began months ago as he sorted though an unyielding torrent of glue-sticks, markers and notebooks for a Billing’s Target store.
Steve didn’t need the money for tuition or rent, his job as an RA and scholarships did that, he needed cash for something more personal, something a bit more exciting than utility bills or registration fees, he needed it to rock.
Between the ages of four and eight, Elizabeth Diehl spoke with an English accent. Her father’s job as a cost management engineer required him to move six times before settling in Missoula to start his own cost management business. Out of seven places she has called home, it was a small village just a train ride away from London called Stevenage that Diehl loved the most.
“I think going to different places, especially across the world, can be fun,” Diehl said. “You see how people are different but also the same.”
A fan of the Beatles since the forth grade, 23-year-old University of
Montana student Kimball Bennion loves to play the drums, and enjoys listening to Cold Play and Radiohead.
Much more than a musician, Bennion describes himself as “a very religious person” and is “always intune with religious things.” A member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and a husband to his wife Elaine for over a year now, Bennion hopes that the one thing he will always have in his life is peace of mind. “As long as I am happy with what I am doing I feel good,” he said.
Sturdy. Shy. Quiet. A slight turn and a brief introduction erase initial observations and reveal a different person. At first glance his stature dominates, but with a simple hello, he eases. Eyes shaded by shaggy hair, and a smile no one could frown at, Justin Woodburn glows, immediately spreading his friendly nature.
A Montana boy raised on a ranch in Geraldine, he is far from the small town stereotype. Polite and talkative, Woodburn is an acquaintance turned to a friend almost instantly. An eminent passion for writing flows from his mouth. Dancing with words he describes writers, classes he’s liked and recent work he’s written. His obvious dedication to the art of writing is hard to miss.
Nature is a cohesive agent throughout the life of Carly Flandro. Among her divergent experiences, it remains the singular consistency.
During the summer of 2008, Flandro’s studies abroad in Chile and Peru facilitated encounters with several extraordinary natural environments. She rock-climbed Chilean cliffs and explored Peru’s Colca Canyon, the second deepest on earth. Backpacking through the Atacama Desert, one of the driest areas in the world, tested her endurance against the extreme daytime heat and nighttime cold. “I could go on talking {about my trip to Chile},” she said. “I had so many amazing experiences.”
Nobody else in her family has ever graduated from college.
But, with aims of becoming a music journalist, she hopes to be the first.
Tori Norskog, a junior studying print journalism at the University of Montana, remembers when her older brother attended his first semester of college. She did all of his homework those first few months, and then he dropped out.
With Norskog, that won’t be the case.
After attending high school in Vail, Sacramento, and Palo Alto, Megan Gyermek has decided to settle in Missoua, at least until she finishes college. An avid snowboarder and hiker, the UM junior majoring in print-journalism relishes Missoula’s mountains.
“I’ve lived in a lot of places that didn’t have outdoor recreation opportunities,” said Gyermek.
Along with her outdoor passions, Gyermek finds time to do homework, stay current on foreign affairs, and work at KBGA, where she reads the morning and evening sports and news reports.
Cameron Rasmusson, a junior at the University of Montana who is double majoring in journalism and history, is welcoming this fall semester with happy anticipation.
After spending his summer knocking off ten intense language credits and conducting research for the Bureau of Business and Economic Research, Cameron is looking forward to a slightly less stressful schedule.
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