Barbara Lawlor, Nederland.  Will Mead says that as long as a future career supports his love for food and the outdoors, he’s good to go.

Will is a senior at the University of Colorado in Boulder and part of his Journalism major requirement is to intern for a semester at a community newspaper. To cover local events, meetings, sports or whatever is asked of him during his internship.

Two weeks ago, he was seen covering a Nederland Board of Trustees meeting and last week he was found in the bleachers at a Gilpin High School basketball game, taking action photos and scoring notes. You just never know where the path to a future career will take you.

Will is from Weston, Massachusetts where he grew up as part of a large family and says he had a great childhood.

“I loved baseball and music growing up. I always had great family support for everything I cared about.”

After graduating from Weston High School, Will decided to enroll at CU because his other choices included colleges in New York City or Los Angeles.

“I opted for the more traditional college experience.”

His love for the outdoors, especially skiing, made Boulder a great choice for the undergraduate from the East Coast.

As most freshman, Will entered college undecided about his major, not sure where he was going, and then decided, based on classes he had taken, that Journalism and Information Science classes would best suit him. Included in the Journalism requirements is an internship.

As a freshman, Will began to visit Nederland, loving the low-key nature of the town compared to the Boulder crowds and heavy traffic.

“When I got my Subaru my sophomore year I started coming to Nederland all the time,” says Will. “I love the town, it seems like a tightly knit community. Love the restaurants. Covering the meeting and the game were new experiences for me.”

Visiting a town is a far cry from hearing what residents have to say at town meetings, learning the issues that face the community and seeing the athlete/students that grow up in a small mountain town perform at a game. It is like jumping into the heart of what he had only seen on the surface. A perfect way to learn community journalism.

Will says he has submitted countless writing assignments, receiving top grades. Research and writing are is academic strengths, and he has experience in a high-level corporate office, becoming adept with office administration and complication skills.

He has worked for Tlingit Haida Tribal Business Corporation, a government contractor with over 700 employees, working CEO Carlos Garcia.

During his employment Will became personally responsible for mining research for Garcia, producing presentations on multibillion-dollar contracts. This work has resulted in high-level communication, strict editing, data analysis, office administration and travel.

Part of Will’s life involved playing the drums and becoming involved in music production and the visual aspects that accompany it. He says he has top industry professional video, photo and audio editing software and uses a Nikon DSLR camera and a DJI Mavic 4k drone, available for his work in the mountains.

Will says he hasn’t actually attended a music event in Nederland, but seeing as music is a large part of Ned’s culture, he will more than likely cover the music scene before his internship is over.

“I certainly can’t be sure of what my life will entail,” he says. “I would love to incorporate music into my career. I could also very well work somewhere involving data analysis.”

Meanwhile, he will be seen in a variety of activities that will involve getting to know the mountain communities and the eclectic pieces of the puzzle that make Nederland unique, a journalist’s playground.

(Originally published in the February 1, print edition of The Mountain-Ear.)