By Kayli Marczynski
Panther’s Tale
On Tuesday, Feb. 7, I was with Savannah Hidalgo and Reagan Cowden, out to cover Roy Wenzel’s presentation.
We obviously weren’t taking this seriously. We had just eaten dinner and took it more as an opportunity to hang out on a school night. After pulling into the driveway of Wichita State, as three high schoolers, we got completely lost, even driving onto the sidewalk.
By now it’s 6:45 p.m.. The seminar started at 7, and we were furiously trying to find a parking spot, which seemed nearly impossible seeing as we were so far away. There was no possible way we could make it in time, even while speed walking.
At 6:50 we had just entered the building with the wind chill feeling below zero. I was wearing a thin shirt, because it was nice earlier that day. After reading a confusing sign, we started make our way to Room 142, the Harvest Room. After taking many wrong turns, the girls finally got me on track to the room. I’m not sure if it was the smell of late night coffee as college kids finished their work, or just the beautiful building on the college campus, but I felt like such a high schooler.
6:52. We approached the room, seeming like the only teenagers there. There were students, couples, older couples, professionals, even a mother and her daughter who could be no older than 8 or 9 years old. It was a comfortable atmosphere, with people talking and laughing a little, sharing who knows what stories. I’m not sure if everyone there had ever written a journalistic story.
In the front, a blank white slideshow was up on the TV titled “Covering a killer.” The front lights were on, while the rest of the conference room was dimmed.
Eventually we sat down, and a taller man was in my view of Wenzl, but it was more about listening anyways. I went into this, thinking it was mostly about BTK, but boy was I wrong.
7:05. No one had started talking yet, and Reagan was getting impatient. Her job tonight was to try to capture what was going on in here with photographs, which was not easy. With a dark room full of strangers listening to Wenzl, there’s not much to take photos of.
After introductions, Wenzl, wearing a black dress shirt with a red tie, came up to the podium. He had a deep voice that was calming to listen to. And as he spoke, I could tell why he was such an acclaimed journalist. He was a personable guy, which was obvious just by watching him in the presentation. He told us many stories and I knew that his trick to writing was connecting on a personal level with the person he was interviewing.
He spent about an hour talking about how to write a narrative story, and then opened it to questions. That’s when the juicy stuff started to come. A lot of people asked about BTK, but Wenzl exclaimed that he wasn’t there to talk about BTK, and that he was just there to speak about how to write.
For me, though, in all, as a writer who loves to express herself through her writing, hearing someone in the industry talk about how he became so successful, it sparked the light in me that has me wanting to continue in journalism and use this skill.
I love to be a journalist, and to hear from someone who loves it as well, was awesome. I’m excited to think about making a career out of this writing.
After it was over, people rushed to talk to Roy, and we were shuffled out. The girls and I sped back to the car in the chilly weather, and as we talked about what we heard, I felt like I took more from it than anyone that night.