Gardening

Class publishes new home and garden magazine in Oglethorpe Echo – Grady College – Grady College


The full Home Grown magazine team gathered to celebrate the publication's release on Thursday, Dec. 8.
The full Home Grown magazine team gathered to celebrate the publication’s release on Thursday, Dec. 8. (Photo: Jackson Schroeder)

Those who picked up the Dec. 8 edition of The Oglethorpe Echo newspaper found a new publication, Home Developed, slipped between the paper’s pages.  

Home Produced, which is also available online , is a product of Journalism lecturer  Lori Johnston ’s Home and Garden Reporting class. It was made possible thanks to a stipend from the UGA Libraries and the particular Center for Teaching plus Learning’s Special Collections Your local library Fellows program , designed to bring archives-focused learning into classrooms.

“As I considered how to best use the funding from your program, our College’s effort to save this nearly 150-year-old weekly newspaper led me down the road to Oglethorpe County and the idea for the special print and digital publication, ” Johnston wrote in her editor’s note on the magazine’s first full page.  

Grady University and The Echo entered into a partnership in October 2021, and journalism students have served as the paper’s writing staff for the past 13 months.

The particular semester-long project for the particular Home Reporting class started in the archives associated with UGA’s Unique Collections Libraries, where students pulled archival materials, such as maps plus archived images of properties in Oglethorpe County, to develop a fundamental understanding of the particular county’s history and aesthetic.  

They furthered their knowledge of the area’s culture, as well as its architecture and design styles, by interviewing residents, artists, preservationists plus gardeners in the county about their own homes, gardens and artistic passions.  

A quote card that reads “Being a part of this course and contributing to the Home Grown magazine has been a challenging and rewarding experience,” said journalism major Ashley Balsavias. “It’s great to have a final product to show as a testament to our diligent work for the past few months.” The 16-page journal includes profiles, how-tos and other stories depicting how residents of Oglethorpe County express themselves through their particular homes and gardens. They produced stories, photographs and videos for the particular publication, which was designed by Amy Scott (AB ’20).

“Being a part of this course and contributing to the Home Grown mag has been a challenging and rewarding experience, ” said journalism major Ashley Balsavias. “It’s great to have a final product to show as a testament to our own diligent work for the past few months. ”

For one student, journalism major Christa Bugg, the project hit close in order to home. While sifting through the library archives, Bugg found a photograph from 1978 with the caption reading “Bugg House cr. 1710-20. ” The particular single-bedroom cabin, which sits on 150 acres of land hugging the Oconee National Forest, happened to still be within the family, and Bugg, after calling up a relative, had the opportunity to tour it. On page 14 associated with Home Cultivated magazine, Bugg tells the full story.  

Print editions of Home Grown newspaper can be purchased in Oglethorpe County at Bell’s Food Store, Golden Pantry locations or the Replicate office inside Lexington.  

Date: December 12, 2022
Author:     Jackson Schroeder,     Knutson. [email protected]. edu

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