A day in the life of Tim Hopwood

Tim Hopwood is Hudson's public works director. I spent a Monday with him early in March and got to see what kinds of things he spends his days doing. Probably the most difficult part for me was getting up extra early in the morning. His days usually start before 6:30 a.m. while I'm just barely waking up. Luckily, he's an easy-going guy who made my assignment an easy and enjoyable one to accomplish.

I wasn't exactly sure what his job entailed when I asked to follow him around for a day. After that Monday I had a lot better idea of all the things he was in charge of and saw some things Hudson residents don't see, such as the inside of the water storage and treatment facilities. It wasn't anything glamorous, but still a unique experience for someone who's not in the public works business.

When I sat down to write the story, I had a bit of a problem. I had an 800 word limit and probably 9,000 good words in quotes and stories I collected from Tim and his colleagues throughout the day. The challenge was to convey the personalities of each character (yep, character) without taking away from the point of the story--to describe in a chronological order the activities of Tim's day.

I think I succeeded in at least giving a good idea of the things that happen on a typical day. If I were doing it over again, I'd take more time to learn the details. I couldn't provide a technical or educational explanation of the things I observed Tim working on. I got so absorbed in what was happening that I didn't take the time to ask him to explain what was going on, let alone recording the explanation so I could turn into useful reader information later in my story. All the article consisted of in the end was purely my observations about what he was doing, and I don't have enough background in public works or water treatment to provide information on my own. I might have gotten bogged down in the details had I asked all those questions, but I still think I could have had a more well-rounded story in the end if I'd have focused on reporting on that aspect of the day.

Either way, it was a fun assignment and I have a contact in the public works department if ever I decide to change careers.

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About my first profile

My first big assignment for this Advanced News and Feature Writing class was to do a profile story on one of the people involved with my beat. Since my beat (read: the topic I cover on a regular basis) is Hudson town government, I chose to do my profile on Isidro Guardado, the youngest trustee on the board.

Isidro is easy to talk to and seems serious about his role as trustee. Hudson is a small, easy-going town, and nobody stopped at his tire shop while we sat outside and talked about his motivations and goals to accomplish while he's occupying the position. If everyone were as pleasant to interview as Isidro, journalists would really have it easy.

The toughest thing for me was getting some of the other small-town people to talk to me in a candid way. I can see both sides. When I'm there wearing the reporter cap, people are going to watch what they say. They seem wary of my motives, even though I never heard a complaint about the performance of my subject throughout the course of my reporting.

As I mentioned before, I chose to highlight Isidro because he's the youngest on the board at 24 years old. I realized that I had always assumed that positions in government were for the generations beyond my own, but Isidro is my peer, and so I found that intriguing and wanted to know what motivated him. I learned that he's a normal guy who works hard and knows the value of putting the greater good of the town above typical follies people our age tend to prefer.

As far as the technical and writing parts of the project went, I learned a lot about cutting out excess wording. Our limit was something like 550-750 words and if anyone in the class went over or under by more than 10 words he or she would lose points on the final grade. My final word count: 758. I definitely learned the value of a good vocabulary and conciseness. It will be a good skill to have when I'm working on stressful deadline stories.

Want to read the story or others by my classmates? Check out the 410 Forum.