WJI 2021, Day 1 AM - Tulip Festival Reporting

For the first day of our course in Iowa, our handlers decided to loosen our horde of student reporters upon Orange City's 80th Tulip Festival, celebrating local Dutch-American heritage. It was a way to drop us into the deep end and experience covering an event and writing an article about it within the same day.

Before we left for the festival, we had a group briefing, where the instructors handed us beats and reminded us of the elements to include in a story. We were not to write a bland “this and this happened” news story, but rather tell a narrative with a protagonist (or group of protagonists) and their obstacles.

“It’s not about the issue, it’s about the people,” Lee Pitts said.

We would explore the festival for several hours before returning to campus to write out our articles. Mr. Pitts reminded beforehand of what we would need to include to make the story engaging and immersive for readers, such as a theme, relatability and details pulled from all of our senses.

Pairs of us got the same beat, though each of us was expected to come up with an individual story. Beats included broad topics like art, policing, history, immigration and many others.

My prompt was to write an article in the style of People magazine. My mind immediately went to celebrity gossip columns, where the source references sound sketchy and the content is details about someone's private life. I recoiled.

They also do lifestyle articles, Mr. Pitts pointed out to me. Maybe I could work with that.

By the time we arrived at the festival, a little after 10 a.m., I had a hazy plan to focus on the traditional Dutch costumes. Not really People magazine fodder, but close enough, right?

It took me much of the day to gather the courage to stop enough random people and interview them, but it was so rewarding. My first sources kept mentioning a committee of local women who put together sewing patterns for historically accurate Dutch costumes and who made sure the costumes of official people in the parade were up to a certain standard.

“If only I had more than just today,” I thought. “I would definitely contact some people on this committee.”

I decided to get one more interview to round out my story. I stopped an older woman dressed from white bonneted head to silver-buckled toe in costume, and I asked if she would mind talking to me about her outfit.

Guys.

She was on the committee. She was one of the founding members, who had been sewing Dutch costumes for 60 years and had even personally traveled to the Netherlands twice for research. She was tickled to speak about it with me.

I could not have been more over the moon. Thank the Lord, it was such wonderful, kismet closing to such a beautiful whirl of an outing.

- Rachel McClamroch