Crystal K. Wiebe - Fall 2003

I’ve longed to escape the familiar as long as I can remember.

Every day that my mother picked me up from elementary school in Beatrice, Neb., I wished she’d stay on Highway 77 and take it straight out of town instead of turning onto Lincoln Street toward home.

It’s not that home was such a bad place to be. I just wondered where that big road led. Sometime in high school, my dream of getting away became entangled in journalism. With the encouragement of my journalism adviser, I realized that my writing could take me places.

After high school graduation, I took Highway 77 40 miles north to Nebraska’s capital city.

Although I had tried to convince myself – and my parents, a police officer and a travel agent – otherwise, this only child wasn’t ready to go across country alone at 18.

The University of Nebraska-Lincoln wasn’t far, but it was a good place for me.

I held onto my confidence as I enrolled in my first college-level news-editorial classes and began writing for the campus newspaper.

By my sophomore year, I nailed an internship with the Lincoln Journal Star, the state’s second-largest daily newspaper. I held onto the post for a year and a half, writing a mix of features and entertainment.

Last spring, I finally felt ready to get out of my Big Red comfort zone, so I began applying for summer work at Chicago-area newspapers.

I landed at The Times of Northwest Indiana, where I wrote more features and entertainment stories.

As I had hoped, I blossomed in the big city and dreaded the thought of going back to my home state come fall, where I have a year of classes left.

I did miss my family and friends, but I now had a taste for freedom like I’d never known it before.

Luckily for me, my permanent return to the Plains has been postponed by this Semester in Washington.

Adams Morgan, Dupont Circle, Capitol Hill, beware…

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