Since graduating in May 2025, Aria Heyneman, a Journalism minor and contributing writer for the Old Gold & Black, has been putting the skills she learned in her classes at WFU to good use in her work in local journalism in her home state of Wyoming.

Professor Catanoso writes: Aria graduated last spring with a journalism minor. She took sports writing and editing with me, and did very well. After returning home to Wyoming after a summer as an outdoor guide in Costa Rica, she found herself restless and jobless. We had a long Zoom call and I encouraged her to drop by the newsroom of her local newspaper, the Sheridan Press, and ask for a reporting internship. She did, and was immediately offered a paid opportunity. She is a general assignment reporter and covers all aspects of her community, learning about the place in which she grew up in ways deeper and more interesting than she ever imagined. As it turns out, small-town papers like the Press are doing far better than bigger city papers like those across NC in Winston-Salem, Greensboro, Raleigh and Charlotte. And the foot-in-the-door opportunities and experiences they offer aspiring journalists like Aria exist across the country.   

You can read one of Aria’s recent pieces here.