By: Emerson Nichols
I had an absolute blast this summer working with the historical society! I got to experience a wide variety of things. I can now say that I feel confident editing videos and audio in iMovie, can scan any photo, and have improved my computer skills immensely!
As a recap, this summer, I worked with the Russell County Historical Society to produce a historic QR code walk. Originally, I was only supposed to make QR codes for 11 buildings on Kansas Street, but I found more historic buildings along the way. When these QR codes are scanned, a photo montage with an audio voiceover plays that explains the historic importance of the building.
In order to create these videos, I had to research all but 2 buildings (those two buildings already had scripts written for them). This took a lot of time and patience. There were files upon files to go through. Once I had researched the files, I wrote the scripts for the audio. Once the scripts were done, photos from the files had to be scanned. The photo scanning process is not a quick process, so this took a large amount of time. Once the photos were scanned, it was time to record the audio. Luckily, a great person volunteered to do the audio, so I did not struggle with finding someone to be the voiceover. I would like to take this time to thank KRSL, our local radio station for allowing us to record the audio there and for editing out any mistakes. Overall, we probably spent over 2 hours at the radio station recording. Everyone at the radio station was very kind and patient as the audio was read again and again. Once all of the audio was recorded, editing could begin. I was in one media class during high school, and I loved it! However, I was always in front of the camera, so I never did any of the edits. During my time in my media class, I got to watch my friend, Regan, edit videos. I used what I had seen her do to edit the videos and splice together photos and audio, making sure to match up certain photos with certain time periods in the audio. Once the videos were done, I presented some of them to the Historic Society for approval. After viewing 2 of the videos, they said that they didn’t even need to watch the other videos and that I was approved to make the QR codes. In order to make the QR codes, I had to upload all of the videos to Youtube. Some of the videos are quite lengthy, so this process took a whole day. Once that was done, I could design the QR codes.
Another part of my internship required me to create a brochure containing the QR codes and addresses where you could find these QR codes. I am not the fastest at creating brochures, so this took me a while.
The main success of my internship and my final outcome are the same. In the end, I made 12 total videos, 12 QR codes, and a brochure. My main challenge was making sure all of the scripts were historically correct. I learned a lot from this internship. Not only did I learn about the history of some beautiful homes in Russell, but I also learned skills I can take with me into college, like how to work with iMovie and how to design a brochure.
At the beginning of the summer, I set some goals. One of those goals was to be more confident and clear when speaking to people higher up. I believe that I accomplished this. I could tell a big difference in my confidence and the clarity of what I was saying between my first meeting with the Historical Society vs the last meeting. Another goal was to be more inclusive. One final goal was to meet new people. I was able to meet homeowners in my town and speak with them about their homes and coordinate those people with the Historical Society. I was also able to meet new people through the historical society.
I would like to end my blog post with gratitude for all of those who helped me along the way, especially Jeff and Sandy at Agrilead, Inc. for sponsoring my internship. I would also like to thank Ogallala Commons for having such an amazing program and allowing me to better my community. I am so thankful I got to work with the Historical Society this summer!
