The Texan News Service Invited to a Journalism Conference

BY REESE KEELING / Art Director 

Eight Texan News Service (TNS) traveled to Austin to attend the Courage, Tenacity, Integrity and Innovation in Rural Journalism conference on Feb. 28.  

Austin is full of fun activities and culture that the staff got to experience together plus were hosted by the unique and very Austin-like hotel, The Moxy downtown.  

We started our day on the 27 taking a bus to downtown Austin. For some of the staff, this was their first time visiting the city. We arrived at 3 p.m. Wednesday and had free time to walk around downtown, take pictures and shop.  

“My favorite part about getting to walk around downtown Austin was the abundance of food places and the different culture Austin brings,” Sports Editor Jaxon Hansard said. 

I’m from Austin so I was excited to show all of my favorite people from Stephenville around where I grew up. I took them to some places I enjoyed growing up.  

Wednesday night the Texas Center of Community Journalism hosted a dinner at The Moxy where they set up a taco bar for the guests.

We played games in the hotel lobby and all around grew closer as a staff. 

After dinner we all took Ubers to an Austin favorite, Gourdough's Donuts on First Street.  

“The donuts were a light airy pastry with a sweet topping,” Broadcast Producer Micheala Dennis said. “ Definitely not something you can get in Stephenville.” 

The next morning was the rural journalism conference. We were lucky enough to get to hear from experienced journalists and see Craig Garnett accept the 2023 Tom and Pat Gish Award.  

“It was just so interesting,” Digital Media Director Haeley Carpenter said. “I’m still new to journalism so hearing them talk about all of their different experiences was inspirational.”  

It’s always such a privilege to get opportunities like this to meet these important people in the journalism industry, get network opportunities and gain more knowledge outside of Tarleton. 

At the end of the day, we got a tour of the Texas University Moody Center (the school of journalism) and it was such a cool experience to see the way other students run their newspaper department and their photo department and to see all of the cool history all over the walls.  

The TNS staff wants to thank Dr. Hurley, Professor Gearhart and our advisor, Austin Lewter for allowing us to have these experiences. The next stop for TNS is New York on spring break.