Casanova '10: Next Batt editor at Abilene paper

(This entry is #3 in our series on summer 2009 Aggie journalism interns.)

Amanda Casanova '10, a senior English major from Lufkin and the Battalion's 2009-2010 editor-in-chief, is interning at the Abilene Reporter-News.


I asked her for a few words about the experience so far and she kindly obliged:

I had never even visited West Texas before this summer. I expected tumbleweeds, cowboy hats and scorpions. Instead, I got wind farms, great stories and some front page placements (maybe, also a tumbleweed or two). For the past month or so, I have been interning with the Abilene Reporter-News, covering mostly general assignments for the 128-year old paper.

I have managed to track storm damage in small town Big Country, chase down a pair of vacationing teachers who were in the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. when a gunman opened fire in June, interviewed a former Women Airforce Service pilot and incited community controversy with a story about a young man who posted signs around town apologizing to his ex-girlfriend.

Here are a few of my favorites:

• Hail dropped ‘like sledgehammers’
• So will Wayna take him back?
• Women pilots race in, out of Sweetwater
• TEA parties return for the Fourth

I will be returning to Aggieland in the fall to serve as the 2009-2010 editor-in-chief of the Battalion and I am absolutely thrilled to bring back some West Texas to the Battalion.