-: I cannot give enough credit to Ball State
for influencing me and helping me to be where I am now.
From the start I wanted to be a religion reporter,
and David Sumner, who is no longer at the school,
he's retired,
but he
was the chair of the magazine department, or program,
and he helped me to write religion stories
and find that niche for myself.
I was able to write some religion stories
for the Daily News,
and for
Expo, now Ball Bearings.
And just even the skills
that I had to learn as a journalist.
I wanted to be a writer,
very clear that I wanted to be a writer,
but the journalism department forces you to
move out of your enclaves.
So I had to do some design, had to do some photography,
had to some video, had to do some audio.
And as newsrooms are changing,
I find that I am better equipped to do those things
than some
of my contemporaries.
So when my editor says,
"Hey, we're gonna do this video story,"
I can edit video and it's not this big production
that I have to ask someone else to do.
I know how to do that,
and I don't think that would have been true
had I not been at Ball State and
they didn't have that philosophy
of making sure you were at least experienced
in all forms, all facets of journalism.