Writing for The Record and being a Townshipper

As an aspiring journalist, it seemed natural that I would do everything I could to gain some real world experience, and The Record opened the doors for me in a way I never thought was possible for a university student.
I hardly remember my interview for the summer intern position with Sharon McCully last winter. What I do remember is her taking a chance on me, a chance I will forever be grateful for.
When I showed up for my first official day of work in May, I had no idea what to do, where to go, or when news started its day. I quickly learned that news never stops, as I interviewed three different people for three different stories in my first six hours of employment.
As an English major at Bishop’s University, I had always prided myself on the fact that I worked well with deadlines, and I had never once missed one. At The Record, the deadlines got a lot shorter, and I felt the pressure intensely in my first week. Luckily, it was a pressure that only pushed me to work more efficiently, and in no time at all I began to look forward to how much I could accomplish each day.
I came into the job with no experience with how a daily publication worked, and it came with a lot of surprises. My original ideas about the job were not very clear. I assumed I would be going to press conferences, perhaps combing through press releases for the relevant information, grabbing comments about an event from officials or spectators. It was this, but it was also so much more.
I traveled through the Eastern Townships more than I thought I would. I visited North Hatley, Way’s Mills, Richmond, and many other places that in my last three years at school, I had never been to.
Settings I had never imagined myself in became a reality. I spent time behind the scenes on a movie set, I saw the inner workings of a medical dispatch center, and I got to visit a local classroom to talk with them about their literacy project.
There were small moments that surprised me and stuck with me no matter how many stories I wrote. A smile of recognition and a hug from an elementary student I had met before, speaking with the founders of the Ayer’s Cliff music festival about the children they have supported, and talking about journalism with a high school student thinking of following the path I had started on myself not too long ago.
As I became more invested in the Eastern Townships and made acquaintances with people in the community, the biggest challenge I faced was keeping my writing objective, as news writing is supposed to be. I had not expected to form such an attachment, and more than once I grinned happily, became teary-eyed, or got angry over what I was writing about. As a Nova Scotian spending her first whole summer away from home, the sense of community was very welcoming, and I got a small taste of what it was like to be a Townshipper.
I also gained a new appreciation for the news industry, and learned so many things from both the community and my coworkers, who were always there to answer a question, or teach me a new skill. With the help of my coworkers, I learned the proper way to take a front-page picture, how to ask questions, and ultimately how to manage my work life and my personal life in an industry that never stops.
I have notebooks of scribbled quotes, pages of articles, and a lifetime of memories, all thanks to a paper that has been around well over 100 years, and the people who have made it what it is. Thank you to all of those people who were kind enough to let me be a part of The Record and its legacy, and who showed me that this is an industry I want to be a part of for a long time to come.