Dear friends
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NEw HCN interns Emma Brown and Michelle Burkhart
Kerri Brown
HELP! SEND BOOKS!
Our hearts go out to all those suffering from the effects of Hurricane Katrina. We’ve recently learned about an unusual — and imaginative — way to assist the hard-hit region: Former New Orleans resident and author Janis Owens has created Books for Folks to send books to relief centers, libraries and schools hit by the storm. The program is supported by the Southeastern Booksellers Association, the American Library Association, and authors from the Southeast and beyond. For information, see www.booksforfolks.org.
FALL INTERNS
New HCN intern Emma Brown felt a bit like Alice in Wonderland when she first traveled West to earn a physical anthropology degree at Stanford University. After growing up in Washington, D.C., she wasn’t used to all the open spaces. "Everything was big," she says. "Big Pacific Ocean, big redwoods, big sky." She’s settled in, though, working as a ranger in Wyoming’s Wind River Range, transcribing interviews with Alutiiq elders in Alaska, and kayaking Baja California.
She has spent the last four years in Juneau, Alaska, teaching seventh grade. After her internship at HCN, Emma plans to write a novel for young teenagers during a writing residency in Oregon. She says her former students may turn up as characters.
If you’ve been wondering what it’s like to ride a horse across the Mongolian taiga, new HCN intern and Washington native Michelle Burkhart can satisfy your curiosity. "It’s painful!" says Michelle, who studied and traveled in Mongolia after graduating from Western Washington University. Riding reindeer, she says, is much more comfortable.
Studying abroad motivated her to become a journalist so she could share the stories she was encountering, she says. She has spent much of the last three years interning at Northwest Environmental Watch, the National Park Service and YES! magazine. Her stint at HCN may be her last as an intern: She’s applying to graduate programs in environmental journalism.
CLARIFICATIONS AND CORRECTIONS
Courtney White, the executive director of the Quivira Coalition and the subject of our recent article "Rangeland Revival," wrote to say that "no organization consists of a single individual. The Quivira Coalition would not be where it is today without the incredible work of a talented staff: Tamara Gadzia, Sheryl Russell, Craig Conley, Catherine Baca, Michael Moon, Deborah Myrin and Gen Head." He also said that the New Mexico Environment Department has not removed Comanche Creek from its list of impaired streams, as we reported (HCN, 9/5/05: Rangeland Revival).
In our profile of John Morgart, we said that the Yellowstone wolf recovery area is "millions of undeveloped acres" while the Mexican wolf recovery area in Arizona and New Mexico is "7,000 square miles," which also equates to millions of acres — 4.5 million, to be exact (HCN, 7/25/05: Wolf Man John).
In a photo caption about Salt Lake City’s Club Manhattan, we said a gangster had been shot outside the club earlier this year (HCN, 8/8/05: The Gangs of Zion). However, the Salt Lake City police department has no record of such a shooting.
