This conversation was edited for clarity and time.
MATTHEW WITT: Hello, I'm Matthew Witt. Welcome to another episode of Crimson and Gold Connection. And today we have Rachel Schnelle as our guest. Rachel, hello. And what is your official title here at KRPS?
RACHEL SCHNELLE: My official title is I'm the Missouri Feature Reporter.
MATT: Okay. And as I understand it, you were born in Lockwood, Missouri.
RACHEL: I was born in Springfield, Missouri, what is now Mercy, but it was St. John's whenever I was born. I grew up in a small town named Lockwood, Missouri. It was a town of less than 1000. My graduating class was 42. And that was a big class back then. There were a lot of things that were sort of a culture shock whenever I went to college. It was good that I expanded my horizons and went to college because I realized there are so many more viewpoints other than my own.
MATT: As a child, what were some of your interests, particularly Were you thinking about media even as a child, as a career?
RACHEL: I think I really liked writing. I knew that I wanted to be a writer, and English was always something that I was really good at. I was never really good at like the sciencey, mathematics, that type of thing, but I was really good at writing and understanding subject, verb, object, writing, that type of thing.
I wrote a short story whenever I was about 12, and my high school teacher, I found it, and I rewrote it and showed it to my high school teacher, and she was like, even back then, that was a pretty good story. My interests weren't necessarily geared towards journalism. I was really into baking. I really wanted to be a chef. In high school, I thought that I would be part of the United Nations, and I didn't know what that meant, but I just wanted to be part of the UN. I distinctly remember being in the car listening to National Public Radio or NPR. My parents always listened to it and having kind of an aha moment being like, I think I could do that. And then I decided that I would do that. And that was pretty much it.
MATT: How old were you when you first discovered NPR?
RACHEL: I mean, I listened to it probably when I was really young, but before I knew like what it was and how to comprehend it. But I would say I was about 15, 16, 17 before I started listening to NPR on my own and then really realized like what it was. I was a backseat NPR baby.
MATT: Did you intern at any radio stations while you were in college?
RACHEL: I did. I was a volunteer intern or newsroom volunteer. I don't remember the specific term at KSMU in Springfield, the public radio station in Ozarks Public Television. I actually met wonderful Michelle Skalicky when she was the Morning Edition host. That was when it was under different leadership. It was Jennifer Moore, also a Mizzou alum. I worked there three times a week, unpaid. I just wanted to get experience. I cut audio. I made phone calls for a specific story.
I took photos, like stock photos for like of like the health department and like the city hall in Springfield for like people. And yeah, so that was my That was my first newsroom internship. I also worked for the NBC affiliate as an intern. It was their social media department. I got a lot of experience. It was more marketing than I wanted. I kind of found out about the internship through a mutual friend, and I enjoyed it. was a good experience, but it was just not necessarily where I wanted my career to go.
MATT: And so eventually you found your way to KRPS, and that was, I would say, we interviewed you in the fall of last year, as I recall.
RACHEL: Yeah.
MATT: So anything about how is KRPS alike or perhaps different from these other places you've worked at?
RACHEL: Well, I think with KCUR and Nebraska Public Media, there were certainly times where I felt like I wanted to cover something, but someone else was covering that. I would be like right on the nose with what I thought was an original story and then someone else was in the middle of covering it. And so, with this station, I feel like I have a lot more freedom to report on different issues. I've reported on agriculture.
I've reported on politics. I've reported on fun stories, like interviewing the author Michael Wallace or doing things like that, interviewing Emily Fang or the producer of Tiny Desk, Bobby Carter. Yeah, with NPR. So, I've had a lot of opportunities to write and grow in my different reporting and producing skills.
MATT: Any humorous anecdotes you can remember about any of your radio past?
RACHEL: One specific one that I can think of off the top of my head is I interviewed Michael Wallace last week. And Michael Wallace, for those who are unfamiliar with the name, wrote his 20th biography. And it was about Belle Starr, who was this outlaw, female outlaw in the 1850s. during Civil War times and around this area, there was a lot of high tensions in the Civil War. Her brother was part of the Bushwhackers, which was part of the guerrilla warfare. When he was killed, it was like a switch went off in her head.
She kind of became a completely different person, but she was also very worldly. She read, she played piano, she studied Latin, she studied Greek. And that was something that a lot of women didn't do at that time. And so they were, she was kind of misunderstood and misconstrued. And so his book seeks to reframe that legacy. It's because of my last name or because of my family. So, it's always been positive.
MATT: Could you just give us what you see as your future at KRPS or in public media in general? or just what you'll be doing maybe in five or 10 years. That's a tough question.
RACHEL: Yeah. I mean, I certainly see myself growing and expanding with KRPS. When I first started working at KRPS, a lot of people, because we're such a small shop, were unfamiliar with the name. And so, I want to expand that reach and expand people's knowledge of KRPS. And that also helps with underwriting and people trusting us, which is all the better. I only know public radio, so I still plan to be in it. When I first started out, my dream was to work in politics. work as a politics reporter, be a statehouse reporter.
So, I think what I'm going to do is possibly be either an environment or health reporter. I recently reported on a story for the Kansas News Service about lead exposure in southeast Kansas. And I learned a lot about that and the impact of lead on the human body and how it gets into the soil and in the environment. And so that has inspired me kind of connecting both topics into one story.
MATT: We are still here at KRPS. You know, we have plans for the future. There's a future for KRPS. And we're all pretty well committed to that. And it's great to have you on board for that.
RACHEL: Yeah.
MATT: So, all right. Well, thank you very much for talking to us.
RACHEL: Of course, Matt.
MATT: Today, Crimson A Gold Connection has been Rachel Schnelle, Missouri Feature Reporter here on KRPS. Thank you, Rachel.
RACHEL: Of course.
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