HNC Staff Profiles Sp2011

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Staffers Bring Varied Experiences to Hard News Café

Jessica Allen
Mending what’s broken–one journalist’s quest for distractions

LOGAN—Going into her final semester at Utah State University, one student tries to forget a failed relationship by putting her priorities in the right order: truck, dog, scatterball.

Jessica Allen, 24, a journalism major with an emphasis in print and a minor in English, said she is ambivalent about the future after having a relationship end, and is focusing more on some things she can accomplish and distract herself with.

“After last semester’s relationship with a guy and some of the aftershocks of it ending that followed me into this semester, I have figured out what to set my mind on other than graduating and a job,” Allen said.

One of those things Allen has set her mind on is selling her Jeep Liberty after she graduates and buying a half-ton pickup truck and a purebred canine.

“I’ve always wanted a truck, and my dad is selling me his horse trailer so I’m going to need something to pull it,” Allen said. “I also really want a dog—you know, the kind that gets fleas. I’m think German shepherd or a Rhodesian ridgeback. I want one that’s big and will protect me, but also a good running and outdoors buddy.”

But dreams of a big truck and dog are not the only things that Allen has decided to make her obsessions of the semester.

There is also scatterball.

“As one of my friends put it, it’s like dodgeball on steroids mixed with ultimate frisbee,” Allen explained.

Every Thursday night, a group of young adults gather together for about an hour-and-a-half to two hours and pelt each other with balls in endless rounds of scatterball.

Allen said it makes her feel alive again and helps her forget her problems as she focuses on only one thing–survival.

Gathering in a circle, everyone yells, “Scatter!” after a count of three, and either runs for the hills or after a ball, Allen said. Not allowed to move once holding a ball, players must either hit someone with it (without them catching it or they have to sit down) or bounce-pass it to someone who has been tagged out and is sitting on the ground.

Payers can re-enter the game if, while sitting, they get a rogue ball and hit a standing player out with it without them catching it.

“It’s an awesome game,” Allen said. “I’m addicted now.”

“I don’t know if I’m ready for the semester, but hopefully these things will help me get through it all.”

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April Ashland
Rogue sorority girl keep people off-balance

LOGAN—A smile lights her face as she walks out of her sorority house in jeans and a t-shirt, her hair in a ponytail.

April Ashland, 20, is in her junior year as a print journalism major at Utah State. She is a member of Alpha Chi Omega and works hard on being an enigma.

“I love that it surprises people that I’m a sorority girl,” Ashalnd said, “because I don’t speak Prada, I love to sew and read, and I’m about as average as you can get.”

She joined Alpha Chi as a sophomore as a way to get connections in the world and to find a group of people she could be around and have new experiences with.

“I like the idea of a sisterhood—a group of people to spend time with,” she said. “Plus, getting ready [to go out] is like going shopping. There are so many clothes in that house that you can wear.”

Ashland isn’t only a sorority girl though. She is also a Unitarian universalist, an avid reader, a quilter, an animal lover, and a vegetarian of 15 years.

“Being a sorority girl is nowhere near the most interesting thing about me,” she said. “But I absolutely love to pop it on people, and watch as their minds are boggled.”

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Cassidee J. Cline—European Correspondent
Journalism senior crosses the Atlantic to widen horizons
USU student decides seeing the world is more important than graduating on time.

FRANKFURT-ODER, Germany—Cassidee Cline, 21, is studying print journalism at USU and is working towards her bachelor’s degree, but her life at the moment, she says, seems to be on a different track.

“I was given a choice,” she said, “and I chose to study in Germany for six months.”

She said she always wanted to go to Germany and, after finding out USU funds semesters abroad, this was her chance to see the world.

She flew to Germany in September and is taking courses at the European-University Viadrina in Frankfurt-Oder, Germany, which lies on the border of Poland and Germany.

“Everyone wonders if the grass is greener on the other side,” she said. “I just decided to find out for myself.”

Cline started studying at Utah State in fall 2008 shortly after graduating from Cyprus High. Her “lust” for traveling, she said, gave her the idea to study journalism instead of business or theater.

“Don’t get me wrong,” she said, “I love being on stage, but it wouldn’t give me much of a chance to see the world, only to pretend I was somewhere else, and imagination is never as good as the real thing.”

Cline’s dream is to be able to travel as a part of her career. “It would be great to be a reporter like Walter Cronkite,” she said. “I think reporting overseas gives me the idea of what international journalists get to do.”

Her physical absence from the university, however, doesn’t go without consequence. Cline said even though she may be taking courses over seas, the courses in Germany don’t meet all the required credits she needs to graduate.

Viadrina is a very internationally based university, she said, but they don’t offer any courses in journalism.

Even though Viadrina’s lack of curriculum will set her back from graduating in the fall of 2012, she said being in Europe is more about the culture and the language.

“I may not earn all the credits I need for my major,” she said, “but at least I can improve my German and be less ignorant about European culture.”

Cline said the semester abroad isn’t just about traveling to Europe, but about gaining knowledge that you can’t get in the classroom.

“I might have to work twice as hard to catch up,” she said, “but it will be worth every minute.”

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Shirrel Cooper
‘Accident-prone’ student survives mountain crash

LOGAN—The scar has all but vanished and the car survived with no lasting effects, but for Shirrel Cooper, a senior majoring in journalism at Utah State University, the night of November 19, 2010, will live in infamy.

“I have always been fairly accident prone,” Cooper said. “But I had no idea that accidents actually followed me.”

Cooper and a friend, Joshua Wagner, a USU sophomore biology major, had taken a drive that Friday night to Evanston, Wyo. A split-second decision to drive back to Logan through the Uintas over the Mirror Lake Highway almost proved fatal.

Cooper, who had previously suffered a concussion from falling on an icy sidewalk and severe bruising and bleeding from a slip in the shower, tends to get into trouble on a regular basis. But up to this point it had never had the potential to turn deadly.

“I love Mirror Lake because I love fishing. I thought it would be a fun drive. But I was stupid,” Cooper said.

Cooper and Wagner’s car slid off the side of the road on the deserted highway and became stuck in a snowdrift. With no cell phone service, and wearing pajamas, Cooper wondered how they would survive.

“We were on this deserted, closed road and I had no real way of leaving the car,” Cooper said. “I have always loved camping, but this was nothing like that. We waiting until the next day, but when nobody came, we realized we would have to walk out.”

Cooper and Wagner left the car early the next morning, and walked for three hours until they were able to meet up with a family chopping down their Christmas tree. Cooper was still in her pajamas and had only the protection of green slippers to keep her feet warm.

“I knew as we were walking that I was getting frostbite,” Cooper said. Later, she was surprised that the damage was not worse. It took her nearly 10 hours after leaving the car to get help, dig out the car, and return to her hometown of Layton to get help.

“It was really scary to think that we might not make it out alive,” said Cooper. “Suddenly I was thinking about my family and how much I loved them and wanted to see them again.”

Cooper, who had always preferred reading and writing and living adventures via proxy, was suddenly living her own adventure.

“The whole time it was happening I was wondering when they would find our frozen bodies and if it would be a good enough story to make the local news,” Cooper said. “I hoped that it would at least make the school paper.”

It was only recently that the last of the frostbite came off Cooper’s left heel, and though she vows never to go on long drive in the winter again, she is grateful for the experience.

“I learned a lot about myself—that I don’t handle crisis situations very well,” Cooper said. “Mostly, though, I realized that I would love to share my story with other people through fiction.”

Cooper has always loved writing and wants to turn her dream of writing a novel into reality through writing about this experience.

“I am accident-prone,” Cooper said. “And I know a lot about adventure stories through my love of reading. What better way to start my dream as a writer with a story I actually lived?”

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Heidi Hansen
Layton native is a news and politics junkie

LOGAN—A Utah State journalism student returning to campus for her senior year says she’s both excited and terrified about her future, which she hopes will be at an alternative weekly newspaper.

Heidi Hansen, 21, a double-major in print journalism and political science from Layton, has been a news junkie since early childhood, when she would wake up before school to watch her favorite morning news shows and with a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Her love for politics came a little later, in 5th grade, during the now-infamous Gore/Bush recount showdown.

“I could never have really thought of majoring in anything else, but times were tough in the journalism world before the recession, so I think my classmates would agree that it’s scary to be graduating now,” Hansen said. “No one knows if they will get a job, but that makes it a little more exciting, too.”

Hansen says that in an alternate universe she would have studied synchronized swimming or interior design. But her parents agree that in this universe journalism makes sense for their daughter, who they say used to begin all conversations like this: “Did you know…?” and, “I’ll tell you why….”

This isn’t to say that Hansen’s smart, she passed physics almost entirely on extra credit and flunked Spanish, but she is resourceful, loves to write and read, and would rather talk about current events (serious or scandalous) than feelings or anything personal.

When Hansen wants to let loose and forget about worrying about the future, she enjoys Gilmore Girls marathons, going to concerts, movies or dinner, yoga, antique shopping and playing board games with her nephews.

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Cathy Morgan
Writer harbors dreams of Paralympic goalball glory

LOGAN—As she nears the end of her career as a journalism major at Utah State University, Cathy Morgan aims to find her spot as a professional writer. But she’s holding onto another dream—to play the blind sport of goalball at the Paralympics.

“I’ve been playing the sport for more than half of my life” Morgan said. “I’ve played for USA at the youth level and within the next few years, I’m hoping to represent our country internationally.”

Morgan practices once a week on campus with other players in the area. She heads for a tournament next month in Kalamazoo, Mich., and will be playing with a girls’ team from Florida.

“I do love going to school here, but having others so close by to practice with gives me the motivation to get going every day,” she said. “I have a hard time talking myself into going to the gym sometimes.”

Goalball is aimed at those with any sort of vision loss. Everyone who participates is blindfolded to keep the playing field equal.

“I may be small and skinny but I can take hits with the best of them,” Morgan said.

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