From Picas to Bytes

Second-place winner in the Nebraska Press Women's adult nonfiction book category. Almost 20 years ago, I conducted my first interview with Joe R. Seacrest. I never had another. I don't know if Joe knew when we spoke that we would not finish the project we started together that day, but in that one interview, he gave me the entire structure of my story. When Joe R. died March 28, 1995, I knew I was on my own. I didn't even know what I had in that one interview until I'd tracked down a number of people who could tell me about the newspapers. The project was aimed at revealing how the Seacrest family used technological innovation to keep a mid-sized daily newspaper in business while many others closed their doors. But as I conducted the other interviews, about thirty of them, it became apparent that the Seacrest newspaper legacy reached far beyond keeping a newspaper in business. It included leadership in those technological innovations I'd set out to discover, but it also included strong First Amendment protections supported by the belief that the people have a right to know what their government does in their name; and tireless work to make Lincoln economically sound and safe, a good place to raise a family.From Picas to Bytes: Four Generations of Seacrest Newspaper Service to Nebraska chronicles more than 100 years of technological innovation, untiring dedication to First Amendment protections, and community building. If you want to know how a newspaper can serve its community, here is how it's done.
About the Author: The day after the 9/11 attacks, a sign popped up in a front yard on South Street. Imagine. What we can't imagine, we can't bring to fruition. So in my writing, I try to imagine a world ruled by a human "cooperation instinct." Maybe in our generations, we can bring that imagined future to fruition. Don't say we can't. Of course we can't if we don't think it's worth the effort. Just try. As for me, I've lived a charmed life. Imagine riding the Sandhills ahorseback behind some of the nation's champion trial dogs; or floating McConaughy with a bunch of professional fisherman-Warsaw Concerto on the tape deck and sunlight glinting off the water; or cross-country skiing the Missouri Bluffs; or maybe photographing nesting Canada geese at Branched Oak Lake. I've done all of those things and more, as part of my job. A sixth-generation Nebraskan, I'm thoroughly immersed in midgrass and shortgrass prairies I grew up with two quirky parents and a younger sister who was as much a tomboy as I was. Mom was a retired "canary" who sang with the big bands in around the Great Lakes and up and down the Eastern Seaboard and my father was a farmer. With my grandmother, I've walked the grasslands, smelling tiny onion blossoms so sweet they'll make your ears ring and watching pronuba moths fall like petals from the waxy, white blossoms of yucca. As a public information officer for the state Game and Parks Commission, I've canoed the Dismal, seined carp, fixed nets, picked trout eggs, and camped out along Bone Creek. I've had the opportunity to photograph wildlife, from Sandhill cranes to elk and buffalo and, having lived my entire life here, I gained intimate knowledge of the landscape that often appears as a character/catalyst in my work. I earned a master's degree in creative writing from the University of Nebraska at Kearney as well as a bachelor's degree in journalism and political science and a master's degree in journalism from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. I received UNK's Outstanding Thesis Award in the College of Fine Arts and Humanities in 2012 and the Outstanding Work in Fiction Award during its 2009 student conference. I also earned several awards from the Nebraska Federation of Press Women. My fiction has appeared in Kinesis and Platte Valley Review, and my poetry has been published in The Reynolds Review. While at the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission, I wrote numerous articles for NEBRASKAland magazine, as well as area newspapers.