My feature article journey

Claire Doll
MSMU Class of 2024

(9/2023) When I first joined the staff of the Emmitsburg News-Journal, I was a sophomore at the Mount. I remember getting an email with the subject line: "Writers Needed for Local Paper!" As a student who only had experience writing creatively, I decided that this might be an opportunity to expand my skills and commit to a monthly writing assignment. It felt transactional, almost. At the beginning of every month, I’d respond to a prompt. Then I’d edit. Then I’d do it all over again. One article a month was all it was supposed to be.

I recall in November getting an email from my Managing Editor at the time, Harry Scherer. "Gig—Let me know if interested!" was the subject line. Harry was wondering—on behalf of our Editor, Michael Hillman—if anyone was interested in writing a feature article. The Fairfield Fire Company was celebrating its 100th anniversary, and the Emmitsburg News-Journal wanted a long form piece about the historical milestone. It would be double the number of words my usual monthly articles were, and it would require me to do some hefty research and even interviews some community members.

I had to do it. While I loved responding to prompts from my own perspective, I craved to go out in the community and learn about the people and places around me. I also pictured my name and article in the news-journal, belonging to its own page. So, naturally, I said yes.

On a crisp Saturday morning, I drove up to the Fairfield Fire Company for an interview with Charles Deardorff and Edward Hartzell, two longtime members of the company, and spoke with them for hours about the history of their fire department. I listened to personal stories and experiences from the members, looked through vintage photos of the fire company, and even took a tour of the firehouse. When I left, I drove past the arching mountains of Fairfield and wondered how I had never been up here before, a small town just fifteen minutes from Mount St. Mary’s. My feature article was published in the December 2021 edition of the Emmitsburg News-Journal, and I hung the full-page article on my fridge at home.

And then I got more feature articles assigned to me. The Fountaindale Fire Department’s 75th anniversary. A celebration at Blue Ridge Summit Free Library for 100 years. The Gettysburg Choral Society, and local authors in the Woodsboro and Walkersville areas. Even a 4,000-word piece on the history of Union Bridge, where I had to attend a town meeting and type out words on an airplane to meet my deadline. My writing has covered stories miles and miles away from my college, in nearby towns, and have made impacts on those people. I would get as many as three or four feature articles assigned in a month, along with my usual Four Years at the Mount column, and I’d love it. I still do.

Meeting with members in the community and hearing their stories, while also giving them the gift of exposure and a voice in their town, is a rich and amazing experience. Plus, I can learn about their community. But the most beautiful part about these articles is being personable and learning about other people—people I would never have crossed paths with, if it weren’t for the news-journal.

One of the most memorable assignments, however, has been writing about memorial and candlelight service of Nick Hani, a beloved Walkersville community member. In June of 2022, I published an article about the cat that lived in the Walkersville Feed Store with Nick Hani, the store’s owner. I interviewed Nick and recorded our conversation, as I do with all articles. I met his cat and published the story—that was all. In September, however, I learned of the death of Nick Hani.

It was heartbreaking and shocking, to learn that someone I had interviewed and crossed paths with, had died. I didn’t even know Nick—just the surface-level details that related to my article—but this news struck me in a way I couldn’t comprehend. My editor wanted me to go to his candlelight service and write about his life, his impact as a person on the town of Walkersville. At first, I was so nervous. I didn’t know who Nick was, and I was about to go to his memorial service to write an article about his life.

But upon arriving to the service, I met Nick Hani’s family and shared the audio recording of our interview from June. I hugged his wife, talked to his sisters, and listened intently during the service. The speakers were beautiful, and the prayers were intimate. Unlike any other feature article I’ve worked on, I didn’t write down any notes. I soaked everything in—the setting sun, the conversation, the gathering of a family I didn’t know. And it was beautiful.

Writing this feature article, I found myself coming up with words to describe such an experience, found myself painting an image of Nick Hani and portraying him within his community. This has been the most impactful and emotional article I’ve written, and it taught me how important it is to recognize those within the community. Communities are intimate, a portrayal of how humans blend to represent values. They are more than council meetings and town halls (though those are super important); communities are togetherness, but also individuality.

It has been a privilege writing feature articles for the Emmitsburg News-Journal and the Woodsboro-Walkersville News-Journal, and I am so excited to continue doing so for one more year. Venturing into communities foreign to me and exposing the goodness in peoples’ hearts is a beautiful experience, and one I even hope to involve somehow in my career.

I have collected and treasured each feature article I’ve written, and I will someday look back on each one and remember the transformational time in college when, for just moments, I would peek into the life of another community and connect with those who belonged in it.

Read other articles by Claire Doll