My First New York Times Story
I became a journalist in high school, when my teacher, Linda Evanchyk (“Miss E”) noticed how much I liked writing, pulled me aside, and said, “How would you like to do an internship at the Daily News?”
I said, “What’s an internship?”
The Northwest Florida Daily News was next door to Choctawhatchee High, and I’d walk there after school to shadow a 24-year-old reporter named Karen Wolf, who hailed from Long Island and (don’t tell my mom) would give me my first Jell-O shot (but only one) years later. Karen covered the cops beat, and (don’t tell my FBI father-in-law) carried a police scanner in her purse.
Under Karen’s wing, I published four stories: a column about prom and three reported stories, including one about a mural of the dogs of Grayton Beach, hand-painted by the local kids on the wall of the beach-town art gallery. When I saw my story laminated and tacked to the wall of the art gallery, I realized: Hey, stories matter!
Ever since, I’ve dreamed of writing for the New York Times.
This year, I was close to talking myself out of that dream. I live in Idaho, a “flyover state” often confused with Iowa. News does in fact happen here, but it’s often off the radar of the big-city papers. And chasing hard news is not really my jam. I’m drawn to timeless stories that often lack a news hook. That’s hard to pitch. (Also: I don’t enjoy pitching.)
Then, two weeks ago, my phone rang, and it was the New York Times. Actually, it was my buddy Mike Wilson, now Deputy Sports Editor for the temple of journalism. He wanted to send me on assignment.
I was Mike’s intern a hundred years ago at the St. Petersburg Times. He opened my eyes to what was possible in great newspaper feature writing. As an editor, he took my writing up at least two notches in one short summer. I’ve long wanted to write for him again.
“I see you live five hours and twenty minutes from Freedom, Idaho,” Mike told me on the phone. “I want you to go there and write me 900 words about whatever freedom means there.”
A quick web search was not promising: Freedom has no town hall, no diner, no pub, not even a single stoplight. It has a post office, a Mormon church, and Freedom Arms, a manufacturer of one of the biggest caliber handguns on the market, a pistol that can fell a water buffalo. It has beef-cattle ranches and dairy farms, but isn’t the kind of place you want to go knocking on farmhouse doors as an out-of-towner. (See: Freedom Arms.)
A little more digging revealed that Freedom began as a Mormon settlement during the days when polygamy was still part of church doctrine. The community straddles the Idaho-Wyoming state line, and practitioners of polygamy—illegal in both states—could evade encroaching authorities by stepping across the state line.
I also learned that when the people of Freedom, Idaho petitioned for a Post Office, the Postal Service informed them there was already a town named Freedom in Idaho, and there couldn’t be two Freedoms. So they put the P.O. in Wyoming. And that was that.
There was a baseball field in Freedom that appeared to get some use, and it hosted at least one tractor show. But there were good odds of driving five hours to stare at an empty sandlot.
Desperate, I searched Instagram for pictures tagged in Freedom. When I saw the feed of @ladyinthewildwest, which is filled with elegant wedding cakes with hand-painted fondant icing as beautiful as a watercolor painting. I didn’t see a sports story. But if I could just get this woman on the phone, maybe she’d know some kid building bike ramps in his backyard. Or learning to play catch.
When I talked to Lindsey Johnson, she said, “Well, we’re raising three wild Wyoming boys…” They didn’t have a swimming pool. So they were learning to swim in a creek.
Swimming! That’s a sport. I could work with this. I dropped my full plate, changed all my plans, and drove five hours to Wyoming. When photographer Ryan Dorgan and I met these beautiful free-range children, I told him, “Central Casting called and they’ll be sending us an invoice.”
Last week, our story, “Freedom, Wyoming” ran on the home page of the New York Times. (!!!) This week, it appeared in print. I knew it would be in the sports section, but I had no idea it would require so much ink. My mother ran all over town to find what may be the only two hard copies in Idaho.
Nieman Storyboard, Harvard’s website dedicated to the craft of true stories, is doing an analysis. Stay tuned for a link.
