By CELESTE BAUMGARTNER

Ohio Correspondent

COLUMBUS, Ohio — The AgriNaturalist is the longest-running agricultural student publication in the United States, and the 2019 edition was its 125th. The magazine is published every spring by The Ohio State University’s agricultural communication major candidates as a capstone project.

“Our typical beats are agriculture, specifically agricultural and environmental issues at the university and state level, agricultural and environmental issues in Ohio, and then those same issues on the national basis,” said Dr. Annie Specht, OSU Agricultural Communication Program coordinator. “Most of our stories hit on things that are happening in the College of Food, Agriculture, and Environmental Sciences (CFAES).”

Being part of the AgriNaturalist was one of the most memorable experiences of her college career, said Meghann Winters, 2019 design editor for the magazine. She knew in her freshman year that she wanted to have a leadership role in the magazine when the time came, even though she had not seen it before her orientation at OSU.

“I enjoyed working on the magazine, and learned a lot of lessons from it,” Winters said. “I wrote an article about the magazine and learned about the history it holds, through that story. It broadened my role as design editor full circle because I talked with past editors of the AgriNaturalist. It was great to hear where their career paths had led them after graduation.”

One past editor was Cassandra Brown, now working at the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center (OARDC), where she does research and is responsible for its website and community outreach.

Former editor Dan Toland now works at Shift-ology Communication, a public relations company. He works with teachers planning virtual farm trips – a unique learning experience connecting kids and adults to working farms from the comfort of their computer or classroom.

These are the diverse kinds of careers Specht hopes the students will find. Working on the magazine, which is also available online, they have to use all of the skills they have learned over four years and put them to use.

“The field of communication requires a very broad skill set,” Specht said. “At some point, they are going to be called upon to use any number of those skills. We also try to instill in them a sense of pride and professionalism in their work.

“A lot of our students will use the magazine as a showpiece for their portfolios. We want them to have a sense of pride in this product that they’ve put out, and hopefully apply that into their careers as communicators.”

One unexpected thing Winters learned while working on the magazine was to “roll with the punches,” she said.

“Towards the end of production week we discovered that we had some extra space in the magazine that we weren’t planning for,” she recalled. “The editorial team sat down and talked about what we wanted to include. It was a little bit stressful at first but, once I thought about it and had that mindset of rolling with the punches, it was exciting to have additions to the magazines.

“That was a learning experience in and of itself.”