continuing to do what I love
Early on Halloween morning, I was lost on a farm.
Though I had driven past the University of Kentucky’s C. Oran Little Research Center in Versailles many times — including every single day that I commuted from Lexington to Frankfort — I had never been there. It’s a big farm, it was before sunrise, and I had no idea where I was.
Eventually Weston Wolf, the student I was there to interview, figured out that I was by the sheep unit, found me, and led me across the farm to the beef unit. Several multimedia guys from our UK agricultural communications team arrived soon after.
To document Weston’s experience on the farm, we followed him through some of his morning responsibilities, which included a dangerous (you can imagine why) trek through a cow pasture.
Then we set up for our interview. I had a list of prepared questions, but, as I teach my students, a good interview should bring up and answer additional questions. As Weston and I talked — him in front of the camera, me beside the lens — another question came to me. I debated whether I should ask it but eventually rambled through it:
“You talked a little bit about experiencing that rural versus urban….So is it important to you as a student that you go to school in a bigger city but you've got this more rural spot? I think a lot of students who may come from smaller places are hesitant to move to Lexington, so I don't know if you want to talk about places like this that sort of enrich that experience.”
When Weston immediately said, “That’s extremely important to me,” I was glad I’d asked the question; when he said, “I always joke about it. I never realized how much I'd miss a cow,” I was kicking myself for almost not asking the question. That’s when I felt tingly, which is the (maybe weird) way I describe the moment I’m working on a story when I realize what the lead of the story will be. There’s something magical about it — magic brought about by work.
Behind-the-scenes photo by Matt Barton.
The story, photos and video about Weston published this week. This is one of those exciting projects in which both the process and the final product are — if I may so myself — wonderful. We’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback; a colleague told me in a meeting that the story was great and said, “I didn’t even need my coffee at 5:45 a.m. to get through it.”
So I hope you’ll take some time to read the story, look at the photos, and watch the video about Weston: UK senior wants to help farmers ‘continue to do what they love.’