Life by the horns...or the hoop

July 7, 2007
Katie Nieland, Grand Island Independent, Grand Island, Nebraska.

Today I covered a Native American dance ensemble that performed at a local museum. Then one of the performers invited audience members to learn how to do a traditional Hoop Dance.

Well, the photographer that was with me and the marketing director for the museum, who used to work at the newspaper, bet me $15 that I wouldn't learn the dance with the kids.

After refusing the bet, the marketing director, Mike, told me that there were certain experiences you just have to go for. There are things you have to cross off the "To do before I die list." That I should just "grab life by the horns," or something like that.

And he was right, how many times will I be able to learn a traditional dance from a Lakota Native American? This was probably it. So I did it. See the pictures for proof. Don't ever say reporters don't get in touch with their topics.

Surrounded by various grade schoolers, I learned the hoop dance, in a long skirt, no less. Afterwards, I was still able to conduct my interviews with only a small amount of embarrassment, because many of the kids were better dancers than me.

The lesson here applies to the internship as a whole. If I had played it safe and spent my summer at the DN in Lincoln, where I knew all the people to call for stories and all the sights to be seen, it would have been fine. The world wouldn't have ended. But then I wouldn't ever had done a hoop dance, met Adrian Smith and an FBI agent, ventured into the world of broadcast, climbed a giant hill to the state's longest zip line, learned about paunch (believe me you don't want to know) or really gotten to know small-town America.

There's only five weeks of internship left. I'm going to do everything I can, including hopefully get an editorial cartoon published.

P.S. I've taken an idea from fellow internship blogger Andy Boyle and have been watching various journalism-themed shows. Right now, I'm into the third season of The Adventures of Lois and Clark, a show more about investigative reporting than superheroes, but still combining two of my interests. Watching Lois get the big story keeps me going during my second night shift in a row at the paper.

My name is Katie Nieland and I'm a senior news-ed major at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. I'm interning at the Grand Island Independent this summer as a general assignment reporter. I've been at the Daily Nebraskan since fall 2004 and will return this fall as managing editor. Email Me, View All Katie's Entries