I interned with the Des Moines Register the summer of 2015.
It was an exciting summer. I got to cover everything from breaking news, shootings, severe weather coverage, feature stories and a few caucus events. I was challenged almost every day and I learned more than I thought possible, about journalism and about interacting in the workplace.
Here are just a few samples from my summer with the Register.
Iowa veteran tours her new, free, home
Michele Lammers has no idea how she’s going to decorate her new home, mostly, because she’s never owned one.
Lammers a chief warrant officer with Army Reserve, received a mortgage-free home Monday from Wells Fargo and Operation Homefront, a nonprofit organization that provides emergency or other financial assistance to veterans and their families and wounded soldiers.
Trump says famous hair will get new look in White House
WINTERSET, Ia. – Donald Trump says if he gets elected president, he would have to change his hair style because he wouldn’t have time to maintain it, as he would be working his butt off in the White House.
This was one of the GOP presidential candidate’s comments that solicited both applause and chuckles from an audience of about 200 at the Winterset High School for the Madison County Republicans Roundup Dinner Saturday night.
People often ask him what he’d do differently if he were elected president, he said.
“I would probably comb my hair back. Why? Because this thing is too hard to comb,” he said. “I wouldn’t have time, because if I were in the White House, I’d be working my ass off.”
Grinnell family honors veterans with memorial tradition
Kaanan Mackey’s most vivid memory from the day her husband died was hearing her 9-year-old son ask her who was going to teach him how to be a man.
Mackey’s husband, Matthew, who served for four years in the Marine Corps before joining the Army National Guard, died in 2010 from injuries suffered in an accident on his way home from a drill weekend at Camp Dodge in Johnston. He was hospitalized for 18 days before dying in the hospital.
Tug-of-war with plane raises money for Special Olympics Iowa
Once the horn sounded, the war began: a tug-of-war versus a 127,000-pound airplane, that is.
More than 500 gathered Saturday morning at the Des Moines International Airport to cheer on athletes, and more than 30 other teams battled with a UPS 757 in the second annual Law Enforcement Torch Run Plane Pull for Special Olympics Iowa.
Ankeny couple volunteers for relief efforts in Texas
Watching victims of natural disasters roam along the side of the road sifting for any scrap left of their belongings has the power to change your perspective on life, says one Iowa couple.
Rich and Carolyn Newkirk, of Ankeny, have spent more than three of the past six weeks traveling to three different states to help victims of natural disasters as volunteers with the American Red Cross. Both are state licensed mental health professionals and have been retired for about three years.
To find more of my stories for The Des Moines Register, click here.
Danielle Ferguson 