My time at The Kalona News comes to an end

By Max Von Gries
Posted 8/10/22

At the end of my sophomore year of college, I knew that I needed to keep myself busy during the summer. I was planning on living in Iowa City for the whole summer instead of going back to my hometown …

This item is available in full to subscribers.

Please log in to continue

E-mail
Password
Log in

My time at The Kalona News comes to an end

Posted

At the end of my sophomore year of college, I knew that I needed to keep myself busy during the summer. I was planning on living in Iowa City for the whole summer instead of going back to my hometown of Bettendorf.

I had plenty of options, including going to summer school to try and knock out a few more credit hours’ worth of required classes for my major, and I was also thinking about working at a regular job. My other option was, of course, to get a summer internship, but by the end of the school year, most internships were taken up already. Regardless of what my decision was going to be, my parents agreed that it was going to be a busy but productive summer for me.

On one afternoon about three weeks before the school year ended, I received an email from one of my journalism advisors at the university. I’m no stranger to these emails, most of them containing information for entry level jobs for seniors that were graduating, but this one was an internship opportunity at The Kalona News. As soon as I saw the email, I opened it and read through everything that I needed to know about the job and, more importantly, about Kalona.

It was interesting and it grabbed my attention right away. The job entailed covering news for multiple communities around Kalona and writing timely news articles about what’s happening in each town. Although I’m attending The University of Iowa for sports journalism, I knew immediately that this would be an amazing place to get real experience with writing in a newspaper, which I had never done before.

During the school semester, I work for Daily Iowan TV, where I produce sports clips, anchor news shows, and produce sports shows with fellow sports journalist majors. I also work for the Big Ten Network, where I do a lot of behind the scenes work as an assistant production manager. I sometimes work instant replay for games, clipping certain plays that happen live and having the ability to slow them down in real time for anyone who is watching the live broadcast. I also have been commentating games every opportunity I can for BTN. I managed to call two Iowa Baseball games at the end of the semester last year, and it was amazing. I also plan on calling a handful of football games this upcoming year for the student-run radio station, KRUI.

With all that being said, I knew that once I got experience with newspaper writing, I had pretty much checked all the boxes pretty early for journalism experience.

Once I had accepted the internship as a reporter at The Kalona News, I was very excited to get started. I really enjoy writing, and when it comes to writing essays and other items for school, I really enjoy seeing how my writing progresses and seeing the final product.

When I first started at The News, Ron gave me easy stories to write by already having all the information needed to write the articles provided to me. Of course, he still critiqued those first couple articles and gave me helpful pointers about the do’s and don’t’s of newspaper writing.

A big lesson that I learned right away was that the headline of any article should line up with the first sentence of the same article. I struggled with this because I was always so accustomed to having to think up of some brilliant title for essays and other items for school. Once I figured out how to link both the first sentence of an article with the headline, it made my articles flow much better than they ever had before.

Before I knew it, I had my first ever article published in a newspaper. I was very happy being able to see my name in print. Of course, I struggled here and there with different tasks that Ron and others put me to, but eventually I figured them out.

I believe that the most challenging thing that I did was interviewing and talking to my sources. It was very difficult for me because I had just stepped foot in tiny Kalona, and I didn’t know anyone here. It had also been a while since I interviewed someone, so Ron helped me with understanding what questions I needed to ask and which ones I didn’t.

Along the way I had a tremendous support group from everyone in the office. Colette, the office secretary, does a lot more than what she probably realizes. She makes the office a very comforting place and would always offer help or ideas whenever I would need them. She’s also the first person you see when you walk inro the office and she lights up the room.

Jeff, the sports director, helped me almost immediately when I first started working. He gave me a whole list of tips and helpful hints when taking photos at sporting events, which I used when I covered a Mid-Prairie softball game. He even let me use his big, probably very expensive, camera when I didn’t have access to one.

Anna, the graphic designer of the newspaper, also helped me out a lot when I would second guess myself. We would talk about things around Iowa City that were of importance, and we would always look for adoptable dogs around the area which gave us both a well-deserved break from work.

Emily, Ron’s granddaughter and fellow intern, was very polite and made sure that I knew exactly what I was doing and how to do it. Whenever I had any questions for her, she would do her best to find me the solution to my question.

Cheryl, who recently joined the staff as head reporter, has done a great job in the short time that she’s had with the newspaper. She brings energy to the office every day and she has done a phenomenal job of keeping everything organized. She does a great job of critiquing writing by really getting into the details and asking “why” or “what” when it comes to the details that are important to the story.

Nancy, who is the proofreader for the paper that comes out every Thursday, made sure that when I messed up with a grammatical error or a spelling error, that I knew exactly what it was and why it needed to be changed. I really appreciated her help and dedication to the paper, and she was always very welcoming and great to see every Monday and Tuesday.

Paul, who is a sports reporter and columnist, helped me fit in with the office right away. He shared his past experiences with me and has helped me multiple times with areas of my writing that I need to work on.

Last, but surely not least, Ron, who was willing to give me the internship, has helped me and given me experience that I will never forget in my life. He knows exactly how a newspaper should run and it was truly an honor to write in his newspaper. After getting to know him better, I soon found out that he was funny without even trying to be funny, and I would catch myself laughing whenever he would tell the office a story. He and the rest of the staff at The Kalona News made Kalona feel like home for me, and I truly appreciate it. I plan on visiting Kalona as often as possible, and I’ll remember this experience forever.