Seward County Independent

    Koerner steps into reporter position
     "To take the first step, you don't have to see the whole staircase, just the first step," is a quote by Martin Luther King Jr. and one of the favorites of a new reporter for the Seward County Independent.
     "That quote was on the back of our T-shirts my senior year of high school tennis," said Jamie Koerner, reporter for the Independent. "Besides using the quote to describe the mentality of a play in a game as compared to the game as a whole, you can also use this quote to think of life - you are not going to always know what decision is best, just make one that is best for what you know right now."
     Koerner graduated from Lincoln Pius X High School and moved to Minnesota in the fall of 2003 on a tennis and academic scholarship to the University of Minnesota, Mankato. Koerner spent two and a half years in Mankato and then studied abroad in Guadalajara, Mexico for a semester. In August 2007, her senior year of college, Koerner transfered to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where she took four classes at the journalism school to have transfered to Mankato, where she graduated May 12 with a Bachelor of Arts, double major in journalism and Spanish.
     "I always sum it up to people as two majors, three universities, four years," Koerner said. "And sometimes I don't know how it worked as well as it did."
     She said that she just took one step at a time.
     Koerner was hired at the Independent, May 7 as a reporter and started May 9.
     "I am so lucky to have gotten such a great job, working with such great people, so soon after graduation," Koerner said.
     Koerner commutes to Seward daily from Lincoln and said that she enjoys the drive on Highway 34.
     "It is a nice, relaxing way to start the morning," Koerner said. "Unless the gas tank is empty and I see the ever-increasing price of gas when I fill at the pump."
     Koerner was a sports editor, reporter and photographer at The Reporter, Mankato's student newspaper. She worked as a freelance reporter for the local paper, The Free Press, a photographer for Mankato Magazine, and a writer for the southern Minnesota arts and culture magazine, Static. Koerner also freelanced a photo for the Associated Press and a story for The Tennessean.

    Fischer to intern for summer
     The writing staff of the Seward County Independent has some extra help this summer from Concordia University intern Paul Fischer.
     Fischer, who is interning at the Independent during the month of May for course credit, is currently a senior at Concordia University in the Journalism/Public Relations program. He has one year left of education before he completes his bachelor of arts degree.
     Fischer began his first day of work at the Independent on May 8.
     He said he enjoys his position at the Independent, as it has already presented him with some interesting opportunities.
     "The staff here has been very welcoming to me. I'm not 'the newbie' or 'the new guy.' They have also taken a liking to my ideas and entrusted me with a lot of responsibilities," he said.
     Fischer said those responsibilities include laying out pages, coming up with his own story ideas and taking photographs of local events.
     Fischer hails from Grand Island, where he graduated from Heartland Lutheran High School in 2004. He said he was initially drawn to biology his freshman year at Concordia, but eventually his interests shifted towards English and journalism.
     "I've never considered my writing spectacular," Fischer said, "but I kept receiving compliments from teachers and professors that it was something I should pursue. Eventually I decided that they knew better than I did, so I gave it a shot."
     Fischer plans to work at the Independent through the summer until semester courses resume at Concordia in the fall. He currently shares an apartment with two friends in Seward.