Staff Notes by Hannah Dillon

Hello! I’m the newest, full-time staff member of the team at the Albert Lea Tribune, and I’m more than happy to be here. Let me introduce myself.

I was born in central Minnesota. Monticello, to be exact. I lived the first few years of my life in Big Lake before moving to the small town of Milaca, population 2,900. It doesn’t seem so small when the populations of towns nearby were 530, 240 and even 16.

Personally, I like writing, even though I do it nearly every day. I also enjoy spending time with my friends and family, baking, cooking, going to rock concerts and traveling. I’ve had the blessing to travel to various places in the United States as well as to Mexico and France. I even road-tripped from Fargo to New York City and back in the span of 72 hours. I don’t recommend it.

I graduated high school in 2010 with a year of post-secondary education under my belt and attended a year at St. Cloud State University. I needed a big change in my life, though, so I decided to transfer to North Dakota State University in Fargo. It was there that I truly discovered my love for journalism.

I have always enjoyed writing. I’ve been writing creatively for as long as I can remember. When I was little, I would write and illustrate my own books on printer paper. I guess I always held a dream of being a novelist, but my dad ever-so-subtly reminded me that I needed a job that actually paid money. As a disclaimer, I’m not saying that novelists don’t make money, but it can all be a game of chance. For a steady future, I needed a steady job.

It was then he suggested I become a journalist. I toyed around with the idea, but I couldn’t settle on a major. When I was at St. Cloud State, I was signed up as a history major. That turned into zoology when I transferred to North Dakota State, but the thought of taking two semesters of applied calculus didn’t thrill me. At all. I often say that I became a journalist just so I wouldn’t have to do any math, because I’m absolutely terrible at it.

After a lot of thinking, I decided to switch my major after my first semester at NDSU back to journalism. It wasn’t really until I took my first journalism writing course that I really discovered that I really liked doing this.

For the 2 1/2 years that I was at NDSU, I wrote for the student newspaper. I also interned at my hometown newspaper and an alternative paper in Fargo. I got to cover a variety of stories at these three positions. I even had to write a crop report, which was a daunting task as I knew absolutely nothing about farming.

What I love about journalism is getting involved in the community. Community-based, human-interest stories are my favorite to write because I really get to know the subjects. I then get to inform the community about these people and events.

I graduated from NDSU this past December. I got a freelance job at my local paper shortly after graduation while I worked part-time at the job I’d had since I was in seventh grade. The freelance work wasn’t cutting it — I needed a “real job.”

I searched for jobs all over the state, and I didn’t have much success, despite countless miles of driving to interviews racked up on my odometer. Then I found an online advertisement for a page designer and reporter at the Albert Lea Tribune and decided to give it a shot.

I’m glad I took that shot because I started working at the Tribune on May 8. You might have noticed my byline. I’ve been in Albert Lea for a little over a month now and things are finally falling in to place after the whirlwind of finding a place to live, moving and getting settled.

While the thought of being a novelist is still in my head, I’m excited and delighted to be working with everyone at the Albert Lea Tribune, and I’m thankful for the opportunity to be able to write in this community.

 

Hannah Dillon now resides in Albert Lea. She covers education, health, veterans, arts and sometimes agriculture. She is the special sections editor, too.