Dan Patterson

This past week I traveled to the Black Hills of South Dakota.  I flew in to Rapid City, and traveled north to Deadwood and Spearfish.  I visited friends, saw family, and had a very nice holiday week.

Upon invitation (thanks Kas) from Black Hills State University I spoke to a PR class about the social web and changing nature of media.

Though the Black Hills / Spearfish area is rural and sparely populated, the people are fantastic.  I attended college at BHSU from 1998 - 2002, and 2004 - 2006.  I studied theatre, telecommunication, and political science.  During my time at 'BH' I worked at KBHU, the college radio station. 

At age 19 I started as KBHU's assistant news director and my job was primarily to wake at 5 three days per week and record the news and weather.  I worked my way up to music director, then program director and eventually general manager. 

KBHU was also the birthplace of the Creepy Sleepy Show - the radio programme and podcast I produced for a number of years.  Creepy Sleepy was primairly a music show from 1999 - 2002.  Upon my return to school in 2004 Creepy Sleepy changed quickly and asserted itself as an intense two-hour political talk and music show. 

Creepy Sleepy was spotted by Ellen Ratner and eventually lead to being hired by the Talk Radio News Service to work as a UN and political correspondent. 

Creating web sites and covering the UN for TRNS, in turn, lead to my current work as a digital content manager and sometimes-interviewer for ABC News Radio.

I bring this up antecdotally detail the potential of both tenacity and technology.  I was fortunate to have good mentors, lucky breaks, and several unique opportunities that helped provide experience. 

Technology has been an empowering tool.   But it hasn't been all technology.  I worked hard, too.  I stayed up late, I gave up the bar in lieu of a mixing board and Cool Edit Pro, I worked the phone and responded to every single email.

But these are values I acquired, in part, at BHSU.  I was fortunate to have started my work in a small town in the mountains of South Dakota.

More pictures of the Black Hills on Flickr ->>

Waxing Moon over the Black Hills