High Country News welcomed new interns in January: Wufei Yu from Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Surya Milner from Bozeman, Montana.
As a young boy from Beijing, Yu wanted to write about sports: “I started to not just contend with the game itself, and the news itself — which is all about scores, who scored how many goals — but the personal memoirs of athletes,” he said.
After moving to New York to attend Columbia University’s journalism school in 2018, Yu continued writing about sports, with a bent toward outdoor adventure. He soon ditched the city for the deserts of New Mexico, working as a fellow for Outside Magazine. Now, at HCN, Yu will write for the South Desk, where he intends to highlight Asian-American perspectives. “This is something that’s missing in the collective memory of Western Americans,” he said.
As a teen, Surya Milner developed a deep connection with the Montana landscape, often swinging a mattock to work on trails as a volunteer for the Montana Conservation Corps in the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness and the Custer Gallatin National Forest.
At Bowdoin College in Maine, she reported for her college newspaper and local outlets, writing about a three-time rodeo queen in Livingston, Montana; a short-lived mixed-race fishing community on Malaga Island, Maine; and her own identity as a biracial South Asian American woman. Milner will work on the North Desk. “I hope my writing is a drop in the bucket of big or small changes to elevate certain people into a discussion that they’ve historically been left out of,” she said, “or at least brings beauty and pleasure to whoever is reading it.”
We are delighted to announce that Jessica Douglas is our latest Virginia Spencer Davis Fellow, which honors a longtime California reader and conservationist. Jessica, a native of Oregon and member of the Confederated Tribes of the Siletz Indians, just finished her internship and will continue reporting for our Indigenous Affairs Desk from Portland. Welcome, Yu and Milner, and congratulations, Jessica!
HCN SAYS GOODBYE TO TO REMARKABLE GENTLEWOMEN, readers and lifelong movers and shakers. Kate Missett of Cheyenne, Wyoming, 1949-2020, who served on HCN’s board back in the early Wyoming days, was a dog-loving journalist and gifted wordsmith. And Mariel Margery Johnson of Santa Fe, New Mexico, 1948-2020, was a weaver, gardener, booklover and traveler, who left HCN a generous gift. Mariel and Kate, you are dearly loved, and you will be missed.
CORRECTIONS
In our story, “Black cowboys reclaim their history in the West,” (October 2020), we incorrectly referred to the Thyrl Latting Rodeo Spectacular as the Thorough Laddins rodeo. In addition, Jerrae Walker’s father was not part of the Thyrl Latting Rodeo Spectacular, but rode in the same circuit. In our story, “Students and faculty urge deeper look at land-grant legacy” (January 2021), we spelled David Ackerly’s last name incorrectly. We regret the errors.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline New faces.
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