The intrigue of meetings

When I went to UW-Oshkosh to pursue a degree in journalism, I had no clue what that might mean for my career and future. I knew I loved sports and wanted to be around them. I worked at the school newspaper and covered anything from our women’s golf team to the men’s club volleyball team and our 2019 national championship men’s basketball team.

Those days spent in a hotel room trying to piece together a story as we raced against the clock and tried to beat other news outlets to the punch were exhilarating. The excitement of wanting the team to do well paired with the fact that you have a job to do whether it’s a 20-point blowout or a last-second shot created a love for the job that I couldn’t recapture after college. Until now.

Sitting through meetings never appealed to me after I graduated. I had sat through multiple Marshfi

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IFE eld Common Council meetings over Zoom and never really connected to the government or those that resided on the council. I questioned whether I had chosen the right field but now, as I dig into local government, I think this is what I more so had in mind when choosing the journalism field.

Now, after a couple months of getting to know the people who reside on boards, councils, committees and what have you, I’ve found a similar love for journalism that I had in college. Learning how a TIF district might affect local entities or how cities make financial decisions isn’t like watching a game-winning shot or pumping out a deadline story, but it is much more interesting to me. I don’t know that I can pinpoint one singular reason that I’m drawn to these meetings but if I had to guess, I think it’d be the fact that I’m learning so much. Watching people go through governmental processes in a small town is a very enlightening experience. These people have full time day jobs and much like me, after a full day of work, they come to meetings to get down to the nuts and bolts of their community.

What has surprised me is the overall care that each member has for what happens within their community. Members show up not to get paid or receive recognition for what they are doing, but they seem as though they just want to be a part of what happens to their community. Now this is through the scope of someone who has only been going to meetings for a couple of months but so far, this has been a very enlightening experience.

The point is, there was a time where I didn’t see myself coming back to my hometown, covering meetings and actually enjoying them. That time has come and gone.

H OGDEN