HCN welcomes new interns

We're delighted that stellar intern Krista Langlois is staying for another six months as our latest editorial fellow. And two new interns have arrived for a half-year of journalism boot camp.

Christi Turner isn't just thrilled to be out West – she's pleased to be back in the United States. A Rhode Island native who studied international affairs at Lewis & Clark College, Christi spent over six years in Madagascar, where she founded a nonprofit, Atsika, that supports conservation and education. Madagascar also sparked Christi's journalism career: Her photos of rosewood smugglers played a small part in the international Environmental Investigation Agency's probe of the illegal lumber trade. "That was a big aha! moment for me, that my pictures could have an impact," she says.

As a student at CU Boulder's Center for Environmental Journalism, Christi edited the school's student-run environmental publication, the Boulder Stand, and enjoyed yoga and drawing with crayons. Her favorite stories involve snow, ice and wildfire, and she's excited to "join HCN's incredible nest of writers and come out flying."

Growing up in New York state, Ben Goldfarb fished the Hudson River despite its toxic PCBs (although he obeyed the restrictions on eating his catch). Later, as a lake trout eradicator in Yellowstone, he used "all kinds of methods" to remove the invasive species, from nets to electroshocking.

In between, while enrolled at Amherst College, Ben studied echolocation in bats in Australia. Holding a bat was an "epiphany" – Ben felt a nearly parental love for it, and tacked an environmental studies major onto his creative writing degree.

Later, Ben pursued his master's at Yale's School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, where his work at Sage Magazine and OnEarth inspired him to be a reporter. Last summer, he wrote for the World Wildlife Fund in Alaska, then embarked on an odyssey reporting on habitat connectivity. Now, he's at HCN – the publication, he says, that best covers the issues he cares about. While here, he hopes to land more lake trout in the high country.

Visitors
Not every issue of HCN resonates with longtime subscriber Tom Bear, but he says it's "something I cannot live without." The former photojournalist moved from Denver to Steamboat Springs, Colo., where he met

Rosalie Summerill, who moved from New Jersey three years ago. Rain fell during their mid-October visit to HCN's hometown of Paonia, Colo., and brought snow to the mountains, delighting the two retired ski bums, who spend summers clearing trails with the Friends of the Wilderness and then hit the slopes come winter.

Ed DeFrancia, a high school math teacher, and Sharon Brussell, an interpretive specialist at Canyonlands and Arches national parks, scoped out Paonia as a potential residence on their way home to Moab. A longtime subscriber, Ed used to read High Country News to his middle school students and to his daughter, Kelsie DeFrancia. When Kelsie was 8, she donated $3 of her allowance to us "to help keep the West beautiful." Now 25, she just got her master's degree in sustainability. Way to go, Kelsie. (And Ed!)

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