This past summer, I had the pleasure of writing a few stories for The Mountain-Ear. My news projects took me all over Colorado’s Front Range, leading up hail-ridden trails and deep into mountain towns I had yet to explore. The opportunity to drive around the Rocky Mountains and interact with their friendly folk certainly helped me grow as a young professional.

For just a little background on myself, my name is Amanda Godfrey (although my friends call me AJ) and I study history and journalism at the University of Colorado in Boulder. I moved to Colorado from the small yet crowded state of New Jersey – no hate for Jersey but a change of scenery was in order. This fall will be my final semester at the university. I’m not exactly sure what the future holds just yet but am excited for the next chapter of my life.

Something that sometimes surprises folks when I describe my work how intimidating it can be to write for local news outlets. Big outlets can be intimidating through their widespread readership and reputation, smaller outlets are intimidating because the people that you are writing about are, sometimes literally, right next door.

As someone born and raised on the East Coast, stepping into an environment where I have a hand in the dissemination of news and information to a tight-knit community like Nederland was quite nerve-wracking; after all, what does some girl from New Jersey know about the Front Range? The goal of every piece and every photo was to get the details exactly right, and although I wasn’t writing about anything particularly earth-shattering it was still incredibly important to me to get the details right and portray these communities correctly for the wonderful places that they are. I can’t express how exciting it was to receive such positive feedback; it was nice to know I was doing something right.

With the beginning of the academic year, my time with the newspaper has unfortunately come to a close. I would like to thank Barbara for the enthusiasm and article inspiration, Doug for the capo and friendly conversations, Sara for showing such kindness (which shined through her emails), and the rest of The Mountain-Ear staff who were all so incredibly helpful and welcoming. I hope the Front Range never changes and that the people in it stay newsworthy.