Onlookers to a one-car crash call 911 and check on the condition of an unconscious Erica Wilson. She was in the passenger seat of a vehicle driven by David Menchinger. The car spun out while traveling at a high speed and slammed into a stone wall in Bowling Green, Ky., on May 11, 2011. Menchinger fled the scene after attempting to restart the car but was later arrested by Bowling Green police for driving under the influence. (Photo by Christian Randolph)

As Waverly High School’s James Doran (12) was attempting to find an open teammate in the second quarter at Pius X High School in Lincoln, Neb., on Dec. 2, 2010, a bleacher full of the opposing team’s fans took advantage of their home court to distract the player. Pius X won the game 72-55. (Photo by Christian Randolph)

Blind in one eye, Roger “Pimp Baby” Grant is unable to work aside from his small business of selling discarded trinkets from around town in his front yard in Bowling Green, Ky., on Nov. 4, 2011. Grant uses the few dollars he is able to gather from his sales to buy cigarettes and beer, a habit which has had him splitting time between the apartment his sister pays the rent for and the local jail where he is frequently incarcerated on charges of public intoxication. Shortly after this photograph was made he sold the jacket he was wearing for $5. (Photo by Christian Randolph)

Lincoln Southwest High School’s MacKenzie Ashton (10), Sarah Faubel (5), Diane Banderas (8), Becky Baxter (4) and Taylor Hansen (7) celebrate their win over Papillion-La Vista High School. Southwest lost the first two games but rallied to win the next two and then took the final match in the first round of the NSAA Class A girls’ volleyball state tournament at the Heartland Events Center in Grand Island, Neb., on Nov. 11, 2010. (Photo by Christian Randolph)

On Oct. 27, 2010, the day before his one year deployment to Afghanistan, Spc. Jason Cromwell comforts his girlfriend Ashley Werst as they prepare to leave Cromwell’s mother, Linda Slosser in Wahoo, Neb. It didn’t get any easier. After several failed attempts to say goodbye and after hearing Slosser’s suggestion that it wasn’t going to get any easier, they still lingered almost another hour and continued to talk. (Photo by Christian Randolph)

Western Kentucky receiver Boe Brand is upended by the Navy defense after a short gain in the third quarter of WKU’s 40-14 loss at Smith Stadium on the Western Kentucky campus in Bowling Green, Ky., on Sept. 9, 2011. (Photo by Christian Randolph)

Husker fans Cody Siefker, left, and Corey Craig take a moment to cool down and take a break at halftime during the game against the Texas Longhorns with UNL trailing 17-3. Craig , who is originally from Nebraska now lives in California and traveled to Lincoln for the game and said, “I’m kind of pissed right now so hopefully things will turn around.” The game was played at Memorial Stadium on the University of Nebraska campus in Lincoln, Neb., on Oct. 16, 2010. (Photo by Christian Randolph)

Grand Forks Red River’s Brenna Nakonechny (10) tags West Fargo’s Kacie Johnson (14) out as she slides into third base at Apollo Field during the 2011 North Dakota State Fastpitch Softball Tournament in Grand Forks, N.D., on June 3, 2011. (Photo by Christian Randolph)

On the first day of “Kids Invent Toys” Day Camp, Toy Factory CEO Trudy Hines shows fourth-grader Carter Yost, left, how tape will improve his gliding paper airplane. Sixth-grader Michael Ryan, conducts his own research in Lincoln, Neb., on June 16, 2011. (Photo by Brynn Anderson)

Bobbie Jones starts to cry as she takes the first steps into her family’s former rental home two days after it was destroyed by fire in Lincoln, Neb., on Aug. 18, 2011. The fire left Bobbie, her husband, his sister and nine of their 10 children living in a hotel for almost two months as they searched for a place big enough to hold them. (Photo by Brynn Anderson)

Adonis, Alieyya and A’iyanna play with Ashani in one of the two hotel rooms their twelve-person family stayed in while at the New Victorian Inn & Suites. The family was in the hotel because their rental home burned in Lincoln, Neb. on Aug. 18, 2011. They were scrunched together for nearly two months while their parents searched for a home big enough to accommodate all of them. (Photo by Brynn Anderson)

Des Moines Acesí player Tyler Nielsen (left) slams into Omaha Rhino’s Zach Undajon during the Cornhusker State Games at Pacific Meadows Park in Omaha, Neb., on Saturday, July 23, 2011. (Photo by Brynn Anderson)

Abemy Kucha collapses and weeps after stopping to look at a photo of her husband Akec Jok Kut, who she said died a war hero protecting her and her four children when they lived in South Sudan. Though Kucha, a Lincoln, Neb., resident, was celebrating Sudanese Independence Day at a march outside the Nebraska State Capitol, she said she remains lonely without him. (Photo by Brynn Anderson)

J.C. Brager catcher James Dugan makes a sliding attempt to catch a pop-up against Fremont on Saturday July 2, 2011at Densmore Park in Lincoln, Neb., J.C. Brager won 11-3. (Photo by Brynn Anderson)

Longtime friends Catherine Jenks and Mel Kurpjuweit, the queen and king of the Pla-Mor Ballroom’s Senior Prom to Remember in Lincoln, Neb., share the first dance on June 22, 2011. The two were crowned king and queen of their high school prom in 1964 as well, more than 50 years earlier. (Photo by Brynn Anderson)

Lelia Jones Ruth, 26, has been a mother for ten years. However, it wasn’t until her recent divorce that she became a single parent. In addition to getting herself and her four boys to school on time and planning birthday parties, Ruth quickly realized an added devistating loss in this new chapter of her life can be very trying and often unpredictable.

Chris Jensen, who has been sent to Iraq three times, faces another deployment to Afghanistan on Dec. 27. He and his wife, Holly, have been separated for nearly half of their nine-year marriage. “You’re more scared that when you come back your kids aren’t going to remember who you are,” Chris said.
He tries to stay connected with his children by recording himself reading bedtime stories. They can see his face and hear his voice at the end of each day. Nevertheless, Chris worries that his son, Ryan, may face challenges transitioning from boyhood to manhood without his father at home.

The event will be held in the Mass Media and Technology Hall on WKU campus at 7PM and is free and open to the public.

No matter what age a person is, everyone has at least one dream that they hold on to. Some follow their dreams and lead rich, happy lives. Others put their dreams down to pursue something more practical or responsible. The dreams we have tell so much about who we are as individuals because however simple the dream is, it is unique, belonging only to the person who created it.

This is the story of two people who are following their dreams at completely different times in their lives. Connie is a singer and traveler from Denmark who only wants to play her songs in the street. She thrives off of the energy of the moment and holds onto no hopes of future fame or fortune. Harry is a songwriter who came to Nashville 20 years ago to try and make it as a songwriter. Tasting a little bit of fame, he left to pursue a career in the restaurant industry. Unfulfilled in his job, he decided to return back to Nashville to rediscover his original dream of writing songs.

One day while Connie is playing on the street, Harry sees her and is taken by her unique voice and spirit. He introduces himself and hands her the lyrics to a song that he has held onto for over 20 years, but never found the right singer for. When he returns she has put music to his words and the two form an unlikely and special friendship through their music.

At 96, Sherman Price is Russellville, Kentucky’s self-proclaimed “oldest citizen.” He was born on the day that WWI began, and he was 5 years old when it ended. He was a teenager during the Great Depression and he remembers that his family was among the first in their neighborhood to buy a radio.

“I used to be real backwards, bashful, you know? But after I got over that I went the other way and I can go up to anyone that I want to and go to talking to them and it don’t bother me a bit.”

Price is a greeter at his church, and a farmer who still raises horses and angus calves. He says that he believes that having a purpose every day in his work is what has kept him going and that the only thing he worries about when he dies is that his livestock won’t be cared for.

Finding great small-town stories for 35 years

ELIZABETHTOWN — When people think of great photojournalism and compelling stories, they often think of big news, distant lands and exotic cultures.

But over the years that I have been volunteering as a writing and story coach at the Mountain Workshops, I have come to realize that some of the most compelling stories and photographs can be found right under a journalist’s nose.

The Mountain Workshops is an annual documentary photojournalism project run by Western Kentucky University. Each fall, participants spend a week documenting everyday life in a small town in Kentucky or Tennessee.

The workshop began when I was a WKU student. A few of my photographer friends and two of their professors went to the mountains to document the last one-room schoolhouses in Kentucky.

In the 35 years since then, the Mountain Workshops has grown into a major, nationally known training program in still and multimedia photo journalism and picture editing.

This year’s workshops came to Elizabethtown in late October. There were 70 “students” who had paid to brush up on their storytelling skills using photographs, video, words and audio. Some were students at WKU and other universities; others were working professionals at newspapers ranging in size from small weeklies to USA Today.

Their coaches and the support staff were an all- volunteer corps of photojournalists, writers and editors from across the country. This year’s faculty included Jahi Chikwendiu, a Lexington native who has photographed extensively in Africa and the Middle East for The Washington Post; Karen Kasmauski, who has photographed more than 25 stories for National Geographic magazine; and Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalists Rick Loomis of the Los Angeles Times and Mark Osler of the now- defunct Rocky Mountain News.

This was my 12th workshop during the past 18 years, and others have been coming even longer. Some regulars, including Loomis and me, are WKU grads. But others had no connection to Kentucky before they started coming to the workshop and fell in love with the experience. They include Mick Cochran, director of photography at USA Today, who teaches picture editing; and fellow writing coach Lynne Warren, a former National Geographic writer and editor.

Now that many of Kentucky’s small towns have been covered, the workshops have started going to larger towns. Besides, 150 people need a lot of motel rooms — not that anyone spends much time in them. With so much to do in a week, everyone works from early in the morning until early the next morning.

Three days before the workshops began, a volunteer technical crew turned a vacant industrial building into a state-of-the-art news-gathering and education center with dozens of borrowed computers and miles of Ethernet cable.

The workshop starts at noon Tuesday, when participants literally draw a story assignment out of a hat. The assignments are little more than leads, though, and participants spend the next four days getting to know their assigned subjects — figuring out what their stories are and how to tell them in pictures, words and sometimes audio and video.

By Saturday night, this around-the-clock learning experience has produced a Web site, about 70 picture and video stories, a framed gallery show and a book that will be published in a few months

The professional journeys that students make between the first and fifth days is amazing. And the faculty and staff always seem to learn as much as the students. The collective effort is a remarkable snapshot of a town.

I always come home from the workshops exhausted — and exhilarated. It is my annual reminder of the power of storytelling. And as digital technology advances, creative people find new and powerful ways to use it to tell stories.

“The Mountain Workshops reaffirms my belief in the value of age-old and priceless community journalism,” said Gordon “Mac” McKerral, a fellow writing coach and past national president of the Society of Professional Journalists.

“It’s not so much about the people the Mountain Workshop stories focus on — the barbers, the single father, the mother of an autistic child or the book mobile driver — but about how those people collectively tell a story about the world we live in,” McKerral said. “An inherently good world filled with people who do special things while not believing they are special at all.”

To see photo stories and videos from this and past Mountain Workshops, click here.