Star Tribune intern from Ponemah shares experiences

By Michelle Ruckdaschel
Bemidji Pioneer

While growing up in Ponemah, Dalton Walker enjoyed flipping through the pages of magazines and later grew interested in reading newspapers, including the Star Tribune.

Now this summer, Walker, 23, is finding his byline among the pages of the Twin Cities newspaper giant. As an intern reporter on the Star Tribune’s state team, he is writing articles that primarily focus on news happening outside the metro area. Walker is one of a dozen interns working at the newspaper for the summer.

“I’m just in awe of this place and the atmosphere,” Walker said in a telephone interview Friday. “This place is one heck of a newsroom and organization from what I’ve seen so far.”

Since Walker began his internship at the newspaper June 5, he has had several articles published, including one that appeared on the front page of the Fourth of July edition. The article featured two explorers from Grand Marais, Minn., who recently became the first known people to reach the North Pole in the summer.

When his editors assigned him the story the day before the holiday, Walker said they told him to “run with it.” And, he said, the adrenaline flowed.

“That day was nonstop,” noted Walker, who will begin his senior year at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln this fall. He is a journalism major with a news editorial emphasis.

Walker said his first article in the Star Tribune was published three days after he began his internship.

“I told my mom and my family members up north to buy a newspaper,” he said. “Of course, my mom was proud of me.”

And, he said, his cousins told him he did a good job. He added that his family told him it was neat to see his byline in such a large newspaper.

Walker noted that his mother, Donna Johnson of Ponemah, has been a huge source of support in his life.

“I couldn’t be anywhere today without the support of my mother,” he added.

A 2000 graduate of Red Lake High School, Walker said he always knew he wanted to attend college. He graduated from the first American Indian Journalism Institute in 2001 and last summer interned as a reporter at the Duluth News Tribune under the Freedom Forum’s Chips Quinn Scholars Program.

Walker said his internship last summer in Duluth taught him about what to expect in a newsroom and prepared him to work for a larger newspaper.

“That was a huge stepping stone,” he said.

Since arriving at the Star Tribune, Walker said he has found plenty of support as he breaks into the larger market. And, he said, he has met several of the newspaper’s reporters, allowing him to match faces to the bylines he has read before.

Walker will intern at the Star Tribune until Aug. 11 and return for his final year at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln later that month. After he graduates next spring, he is optimistic he will get an internship at another large newspaper. Afterward, he said he hopes to find a “nice newsroom job,” preferably in Minnesota.