Devin Dotson in Bartholdi Park at the U.S. Botanic Garden
I recently fulfil the new public function officer for theU.S. Botanic Gardensand when I institute out his level is inagriculturalcommunications , I had to find out more .
Devin Dotson acquire up in a little rural town in northwesterly Alabama , where his family grew their own vegetable and ornamentals on a half - Akka deal . He took agriculture courses in mellow schooltime – surveying , ag mechanics , industrial plant and animate being sciences – and receive super - combat-ready inFuture Farmers of America , which turns out still exists ! In much of the country , at least .
Devin Dotson in Bartholdi Park at the U.S. Botanic Garden
And to my surprise , FFA is n’t just for stock - raising . member vie in such events as vocal quartets , string ring and public speaking , and Devin ’s mathematical group won first place state - astray in all three . His execute groups were the official amusement at FFA ’s home conferences .
That ’s Devin , 2nd from the left hand .
husbandry and euphony ? Well , why not ? And check outthis videofrom 2013 – those kids can play !
That’s Devin, second from the left.
On top of all that , at 14 Devin start working at his local paper and make up one’s mind to go after that track in college – until he was told that everyone is majoring in communications these days and he should do something a bit different . Specialize .
So if your chosen specialism is communicate about plant life , where do you go to learn that ? release out , to one of the three or four schools in the U.S. offering a degree in agricultural communicating , one of which is Auburn Universityright there in Alabama . Here ’s howAuburn describes the degree :
The Agricultural Communications program is design to produce graduates who possess exceptional communication skills meshed with a strong skill - based background in agriculture and natural resources . This degree enables graduate to pass on lively information relate to science , agriculture , natural resources , food and the environment to diverse audiences .
So Devin enter there , remove courses in ag and communication , while working on the school newspaper and in the campus Sustainability Office . As a volunteer he was Auburn ’s Agricultural Ambassador , traveling the state to career days .
Next Devin went to the University of Florida for a masters degree in communications but again with a metier – a combination of International Environmental Communications and Latin American Studies . ( His other undergrad John R. Major had been in Spanish . ) Devin ’s master thesis was about how journalist incubate clime modification in Chile . How cool is that ?
His first job brought him to D.C. , where he did communications forAmerican Riversfor almost six years and fetch to write about body of water a lot but also plants in their role as green infrastructure . He visited the U.S. Botanic Garden on a regular basis during those old age and now says it ’s “ cool to be here on the back side . ” Plus , he gets to continue writing about conservation .
Southerners Losing their AccentsVeering off - topic for a consequence , I have to mention that you ’d be hard - pressed to guess that Devin is from the Deep South from the way he peach . So what bump to his speech pattern ? He explicate that he did enough travel in high school to experience people “ look askance ” at him , questioning his knowledge , prejudging him found on his emphasis , so he decided to lose it . Studying broadcast journalism helped move him toward that accentless ideal of newscasters from Anywhere , U.S.A.
I could n’t resist telling Devin about my own bust with anti - Southern dogmatism when I depart fundamental Virginia to go to college in the North during the contentious Vietnam War years . Like him , I learned to articulate – no more flatten those chiliad ’s ! Unlike Alabamans , I ’d never learned to say “ fixing to ” or “ might could , ” so did n’t have to unlearn those . But “ y’ all ” is a conversational raw material for all Southerners and neither of us is willing to give it up . It ’s a damn useful word and far better than “ you guy . ”
