UNL interns in Kimball for the summer

Kimball is participating in an internship for the University of Nebraska-Lincoln this summer. For eight weeks Kimball is home to two interns from UNL and they will be helping several projects.

The interns are Jessica Bartak, 20 and Emilia Woeppel, 21. Both girls are involved with agriculture and are very excited to be in Kimball.

Bartak, is a agriculture business major with a banking and finance option, and will be a junior in college this coming year.

"It's kind of a wide major and I'm not sure yet what I want to do. That's really why I applied for this internship, to get more experience," Bartak said.

Bartak grew up in Ainsworth, Nebraska, on her father's farm. Due to growing up surrounded by agriculture, Bartak holds the business rather close.

"It's very important to me to stay involved with agriculture, I feel that my major gives me variety of options and so I can have different experiences and then decide what I want to do," Bartak said.

While numbers can be a daunting aspect to some this is not the case with Bartak. She recalled working on her father's farm and helping in the office with various things.

"I guess I enjoy punching numbers," Bartak said.

Growing up in Ainsworth, Bartak enjoyed the landscape. Ainsworth is surrounded by sand hills and therefore offered a different landscape than Kimball. However, she said she was also excited about the difference in landscapes here in Kimball. The landscape isn't the only difference that Bartak noted.

"I'm excited to be in a new place getting new experiences. Kimball is still a small rural town but it's very different from Ainsworth. When people have lived here a long time, I feel like they might have trouble coming up with new ideas and I feel like as an outsider I have those new ideas to offer," Bartak said.

Woeppel, similar to Bartak, hopes to help the community with her fresh point of view. She also feels that with her focus being on the internship she can help because her time here is dedicated to just that.

"We're really able to put a lot of effort into the tasks we're given. We're both newcomers to Kimball and we have grown up in small rural towns so we have an idea how smaller towns function, but since we're not from Kimball we have a different perspective that can help bring new opportunities to Kimball," Woeppel said.

Woeppel grew up near Firth, Nebraska, a small village with a population smaller than Kimball's. A senior in college this forth coming year, she is majoring in agriculture education with an additional endorsement in biology education and a minor in entrepreneurship and leadership. She had heard about the internship increasingly in her most recent semester of school and thought that working so closely with a community would provide a unique and interesting experience for her.

"One thing I hope to gain is that, in the future when I am a teacher in agriculture, it will be very important for me to be able to work with a community, so I know that this experience will help me learn how to integrate myself into a community and that will be something that will help me in the future," Woeppel said.

Woeppel grew up surrounded by agricultural education, her dad was very involved with it, as he was an ag teacher. So with her major that has been her main focus. She expressed excitement for new experiences.

"I'm also just excited to have experiences outside of agriculture and FFA, because that's been my focus for so long and it's great and I love it but it's helpful to get out and have other experiences as well," Woeppel said.

Both Bartak and Woeppel are working closely with the City in Economic Development and with the Kimball Recruitment Coalition (KRC). Wilson Bowling, Kimball Economic Development Director, has been using their eagerness as a way to get some much needed grant research done.

"Right now they've been helping me find different funding sources for problems like the theatre, and they found something like seven pages of grants. Which some of the grants can carry over into other projects beyond just that of the theatre they can be used for the library funds and things like that," Bowling said.

Bowling mentioned how he was impressed with the girls' work, saying that they might be "too bright" and "too fast," considering they seem to have tasks completed as they're given to them.

"They work quick and I hope to have something that they can take the lead on soon. I'd like to provide them with something that allows them to grow professionally as young leaders," Bowling said.

The interns are also working with the KRC on a few things. They have done research on job descriptions for an activities director and are getting in contact with other communities that have this position in order to provide a job description for Kimball. They are also going to be working on making videos that showcase Kimball and what it has to offer.

At the most recent KRC meeting on Monday June 30, Bartak showed off the new Facebook page she had been working on for the KRC and Chamber. All present were eager to get the Facebook page started and decided to show it to the Chamber board members in order to get approval. This new Facebook page will be backed by both the Chamber of Commerce and the KRC and has a description on it as to what it should be used for. Although the page is not active at the time of press it should be within the following week.

Bartak's update at the KRC meeting included what research she had done on a activities director job description. She said she hoped to be in touch with other communities with that currently have an activities director so that she might have a better understanding.

Woeppel and Bartak will both be working out of the Welcome Center until the last week of July.