Make it your home

By Mimi Abebe
Special to chipsquinn.org

Posted: March 25, 2009

Mimi Abebe

Appleton isn’t a big city, or should I say “town.” When I first drove through it, I was pleasantly surprised to find a Wal-mart and Barnes & Noble—more businesses than I expected to see in a community of 70,000.

And then there was The Post-Crescent. In the center of town, the newspaper seemed like the heart of it all—only a block away from the public library, post office and the hottest party street in town, College Avenue.

I drove up to the front of the building with my dad on my first day in Appleton. Of course, he made me stand in front of The Post-Crescent sign outside the building and pose in my “first-real-job” photo.

It was an incredible feeling to know that I would be letting go of my small city in Nebraska to become a member of an even smaller city in Wisconsin.

I knew it would take me a while to feel like I was a member of this new community. What I didn’t know was how important it would be for me to be able to do it.

One of my first assignments was to write about alumni that were going to be recognized at the local university’s commencement ceremony. It was a straightforward story that was meant to warm me up. I finished it in no time and had the article ready for editing long before deadline.

The story ran, and before lunch that same day I was the victim of a brutal verbal beating by an angry reader.

I hadn’t made a mistake. There was no spelling error or factual error. She was angry that I hadn’t spent more time in the article talking about the accomplishments of her husband, one of the three alumni who were recognized.

I learned a lot from that experience. Though the article I wrote was sufficient, I forgot to look at it though the eyes of our readers. Stories like those mattered to them. It was my job to make sure they mattered to me just as much.

When the woman on the phone asked me if I knew what her husband did for a living, I should have been able to tell her without referencing my notes.

My stories started to be more successful when I treated Appleton as if it were my home. They were also more fun to write.

By the end of my three months, Appleton hadn’t changed much. We had a Chipotle restaurant (which came in a week before I left), but overall, the city was the same.

Appleton isn’t big, it may never be big. Still, I saw it differently. I had become a part of the community.

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