Austin Schempp is a senior studying journalism at the University of Montana, and is excited to be leading the award-winning Montana Journalism Review in new directions. This past summer, he worked as an intern for the Runner’s World website where he gained valuable magazine experience. Austin will receive his bachelor’s degree in December. Afterward he plans on beginning his journalism career working for a magazine. His favorite magazines include Esquire, The Atlantic, and Runner’s World.

Madelyn Beck is double majoring in journalism and theatre, and has no clue where her life is headed when she graduates this year. She studies radio and print journalism, but has worked with television, photography, and the performing arts. Last year, she created radio broadcasts in India and completed an internship writing and taking pictures for a newspaper in North Dakota’s Bakken oil country. Wherever she goes, she just hopes it’ll lead to more travel miles.

Tera Dittbrenner is a senior at the University of Montana majoring in photojournalism. Originally from San Francisco, she moved to Helena when she was 13 and has loved it ever since.  She hopes to stay in the Northwest and would like to live in Oregon or Washington. In addition to photography, she loves writing, reading, and food, and hopes that one day she can find a job that incorporates all three.

Peregrine Frissell is a junior studying journalism, economics, and history. Though he grew up traipsing through the mountains of Montana with his Boy Scout troop, he yearns to write in far-away places. He will be studying abroad during the spring of 2015 in Thailand. He hopes to become a proficient and competent traveler, writer, and researcher and find his way into international journalism. His interests include foreign policy, international conflicts, energy policy, and the economics of climate change. He loves reading and likens being a good journalist to being a good citizen.

Katheryn Houghton is a Kentucky native in love with Montana who aspires to trade snow for sand when graduation becomes a memory instead of a theory. Katheryn is a double major in journalism and Middle Eastern studies with a minor in Arabic. She will buy time teaching English as a second language anywhere in the Arab World while learning Arabic and freelancing on the side. Eventually she will work at a newspaper conducting interviews without relying on interpreters. She hopes her writing will bridge gaps between communities to understand one another – no matter how separated they are by land or ideas.

Conrad Scheid is the news director of KBGA Missoula, and former columnist and current copy editor for the Montana Kaimin. He is obsessed with black coffee, strange sounds, quiet conversation, and oxford commas. After graduation he plans to move to Alaska to hide from the modern world (and his loan officers) for at least a year or two. Lately he’s been reading a lot of Cormac McCarthy, so if you notice obtuse language or a lack of punctuation in the Year Ahead section, he’s probably to blame for that. He apologizes.

Jess Field will graduate from the University of Montana this spring with a journalism degree and a wildlife biology minor. His passion for telling stories has been magnified in the past two years by a shift in focus from print to video and still photography. He is currently working as a video intern for the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation. Jess is also involved in student politics at UM and lists advocating for important issues like students living with disabilities as his chief undergraduate achievements.

Bjorn Bergeson has lived, worked, and written things in and around Montana for at least a decade or two now. A latecomer to the education fad of the late 2000’s, he finally decided to enroll in the UM School of Journalism in 2010. In 2014, he was named the J-School’s official “Mendacious Little Bastard,” and he was a finalist in the 2013 Hearst feature writing competition. By the time you read this, Bjorn will have finished his final semester of college, which means he’ll probably be somewhere in the world smoking too many cigarettes. He might even have a job.

Ryan Mintz is a senior at the University of Montana studying journalism and philosophy. Over the past five months, he worked for the Montana Innocence Project investigating post-conviction felony cases for inmates across Montana. As a student journalist also spent the past year working as a copy editor for the Montana Kaimin. He plans to graduate in December 2014.

Courtney Anderson is a native of Helena and will graduate from the University
of Montana in May 2015. She is a journalism major with two minors in Latin American studies and international development studies. She works at the Montana Kaimin as the diversity reporter and enjoys writing long-form investigative stories. Last summer, she traveled to Mexico and spent the majority of her time in the state of Michoacán. She plans on living and reporting in South America after graduation. ​

Without ever having visited, Michael chose to get his education in Montana because he knew it was going to be awesome. He was right. Growing up in Sammamish, Washington, set perfectly between the Puget Sound and the Cascade Mountains, he had endless opportunities to explore the outdoors. He ventured to Montana so he could continue to explore. Last January, he went to India and plans to return this summer. Michael is majoring in business and journalism with a minor in mountain studies and is an intern for The Vital Ground Foundation. His dream is for his education to lead to him to a place where it’s his job to ski every day.

Jesse Flickinger is a senior at the University of Montana studying journalism and philosophy. Jesse recently completed a summer internship at the Missoulian and currently serves as sports editor at the Montana Kaimin. He was also recently selected as a 2014 Jim Murray Memorial Foundation Scholar. His work has been published by the Atlantic’s Longreads, the Missoulian, and the Montana Kaimin. He hopes to begin a longform sportswriting career. After school, or go to law school and become the next Ari Gold.

Amanda is a senior from Miles City, Montana, and is majoring in print journalism. She’s always had a passion for writing and has recently decided to test her creative eye in other fields, such as design. Amanda has studied environmental writing in India this past winter and more recently, this summer she has interned at the Missoulian Newspaper as a reporter. She is expected to graduate spring of 2015

Rachel Leathe was raised in the prairie of Central Montana, surrounded by mountains. It was this vast emptiness that taught her the beauty of subtractive space. The majestic Rocky Mountains taught her form.  Rachel has been a photographer and videographer for the Montana Kaimin for a year and half. She is also a reporter for KBGA, the college radio station. She will be graduating in December with a journalism degree with a minor in humanities. After graduation, she will be quite busy exploring the world.

Kristin Kirkland is a senior studying photojournalism at the University of Montana. As well as attending school, she runs her own photography business, Kirkland Photography. After college, she plans to continue her business and hopefully become a western advertisement photographer for big-name companies as well as local ranches. She is terrified of forgetting things and that is why she carries a camera. She lives by words of French photographer Marc Riboud:  “Taking pictures is savoring life intensely, every hundredth of a second.” This is what she believes and plans to do.​

Sarah Chaput de Saintonge is a senior in the University of Montana photojournalism program. She spent a year working as an assistant for world-renowned photojournalist Ami Vitale. The first exhibition of her work in December 2012, entitled SELF, was an exploration of self-portraiture and similarity presented with Wyatt McCollum in the Rocky Mountain School of Photography gallery. She works as the teaching assistant supervisor at RMSP during the summer. After graduation, she will work as a freelance and portrait photographer while working with her husband toward managing RMSP.

Elliott Natz, 24, is a senior finishing his journalism degree at the University of Montana. His focus is photography and multimedia. He interned for the Missoulian and spent time on the Blackfeet Reservation in northern Montana working on a story for the Native News Project. Elliott is continually looking for new story ideas and ways to grow as a journalist and photographer.

Gracie Ryan grew up right outside Chicago and, craving cross-country adventures, moved to Missoula after graduating high school. Upon arriving in Montana, she realized cross-country adventures weren’t enough and, over the next few years, traveled to South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. She’s scuba dived with sea turtles on the Great Barrier Reef, jumped off the world’s largest commercial bungee jump, and swam with great white sharks. She’s now back in Missoula, working as the videographer for MJR and as photo editor of the Montana Kaimin. She’ll graduate in May 2015 and then, who knows.

Paul Nocchi, 21, is a senior in journalism at the University of Montana. When he’s not searching for Wi-Fi, Paul can be found flipping through GQ magazines for new shoe and watch combinations. After graduating in 2015, Paul wants to travel and write freelance for fashion publications. The most important lesson MJR taught him is “ye who holds the master login shan’t be ignored.” Paul is from Sammamish, Washington, and graduated from Eastlake High School in 2011. He is a member of Sigma Phi Epsilon.

Abbey Dufoe is originally from the Philadelphia suburbs, and came to Missoula to pursue a master’s degree in environmental science and natural resource journalism. She serves as a web editor at the Montana Kaimin, UM’s student-run newspaper, and interned at Backpacker Magazine last summer in Boulder, Colorado. After completing her master’s degree, she hopes to work on the digital side of an outdoor publication and live in the Rocky Mountains.

Henriette Löwisch started out as an intern for a glossy German women’s magazine what seems like a zillion years ago. She returned to magazine publishing via a professorship at the University of Montana School of Journalism and has served as editor-in-chief of Montana Journalism Review since 2012. Her favorite magazines are the New Yorker, the Economist, and Cook’s Illustrated.