This spring, the Daily Inter Lake partnered with Kalispell Public Schools on Civic Voices, a news literacy course teaching Kalispell Middle School eighth graders the fundamentals of journalism. This August, six of those students returned as rising freshmen for a Storytelling Bootcamp, where they built on that foundation with hands-on interviewing and profile writing, telling the stories of six people shaping the Kalispell community.
In this episode, student Devin Stevens interviews Jordan Venezio, the police chief for the city of Kalispell. Venezio explains how a downturn in the real estate market led him into law enforcement at 21 after he had planned a career in business, why he considers character more important than training when hiring officers, and how he guards against the jadedness that can come from years of seeing people on their worst days.
Devin's full written profile of Chief Venezio appears in the Daily Inter Lake on September 9.
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