I’m Shawna Richter-Ryerson, and I’m the new communications associate for the School of Natural Resources, the National Drought Mitigation Center and the Nebraska State Climate Office. I’m a person driven by curiosity and an insatiable desire to learn, so I’m looking forward to the depth and breadth of the SNR.
My parents, both who grew up on family farms, instilled a love of nature in me and my siblings from a very early age. They cultivated this love by giving us hands-on roles in our summer food gardens, taking us hunting and fishing, and taking annual summer vacations to national parks. I often teased my parents that I’d visited every national park in the United States by the time I was 18.
My enthusiasm for the topics taught within the SNR, NDMC and NSCO are high. They are topics I’ve paid close attention to as a journalist over the last 11 years. As a reporter in Iowa, I covered everything from prescribed fires to a Trumpeter swan re-release program to natural disaster planning. As an editor in Iowa and in Lincoln, I pulled and edited stories ranging from droughts to climate change to species discoveries. I helped sandbag in an effort to save Gulfport, Illinois, from major flooding in 2008, only to see the levee collapse and the town go under. I’ve taken part in Living, Lands and Waters and done annual Earth Day cleanups. Each of these experiences has taught me a little about the globalization of our society, about how something I do, no matter how seemingly small, can impact someone thousands of miles away. It’s become hugely important to show that relationship, and as the communications associate, I now get to share in that responsibility.
I am wholeheartedly looking forward to it, and I hope to inspire an enthusiasm in the public for what those in the SNR, NDMC and NSCO do every day.
Feel free to contact me at 402-472-6515 or srichter-ryerson2@unl.edu. Or just pop in my office at 911 Hardin Hall — after all, I’m a small-town Illinois girl who grew up sitting on my neighbor’s front porch swing and listening to stories. I value that kind of relationship and hope to build one like it with you all.
More details at: http://go.unl.edu/s8ma