If you had asked me at this time last year if I thought that I would ever be working for MTV covering one of our country’s most historic elections, I would have laughed in your face and looked at you like you were crazy.

        It’s hard to believe that only 11 months ago I was arriving in New York City, with 50 other young people from around the country to find out how we would be playing a role in the 2008 election.  I had no idea what to expect and definitely no idea that this opportunity would turn into the experience it did.

        Before starting with the Street Team I had little to no journalistic experience. When my journalism teacher approached me about applying for the position I thought she had lost her mind. There was no way I would ever get chosen with no experience but somehow, I did.

        After returning to South Dakota from the New York orientation I hit the ground running. I honestly had no idea what I was going to report on or who I was going to interview, to be perfectly honest, nothing really politically exciting ever happens in South Dakota. We aren’t a battle ground state. It’s assumed that South Dakota will almost always go red, and incumbent’s always have the best chance of winning in the election.

        After sitting in front of my computer, staring at the screen for what seemed like hours, I realized something. The point of the Street Team having a reporter in every state and the District of Columbia was so that we could bring to light the stories that weren’t getting told, the smaller, lesser known stories that hit home for the people around me. Stories about why South Dakota has the highest rate of STD’s among teenage girls or why, even after his brain hemorrhage, people still thought Senator Tim Johnson was the best man for the job. Native American issues are huge in South Dakota but rarely heard about outside of the reservations. These are the stories, I realized, that need to be told and need to be brought to light.

        Some of the greatest stories I’ve got to hear and share have been the little ones.  Stories like the one about Bear Butte, a sacred Native American site in the Black Hills that is being threatened by the building of a bar and campground that is a major tourist attraction during the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally. This is a story that may not sound like much but once you dig deeper you find that this has been a sacred Native American site for thousands of years and a place where thousands of Native American people come each summer to pray.

        Other stories include HB 1261, a bill allowing anyone to carry a firearm onto any college campus in the state of South Dakota as a means of self protection following the events at Virginia Tech and NIU. The abortion ban is always big in South Dakota and this year was no different.

        This has been a learning experience both personally and professionally. I’ve had the opportunity to meet some amazing people along the way. I’ve had opportunities because of this job that I never would have had. I’ve been featured in Seventeen Magazine and been part of an Emmy winning project—Street Team ’08.

        It hasn’t always been easy, and at times not always the most fun but if you ask me if it’s been worth it, the answer is yes, a thousand times over. I wouldn’t trade the long nights, early mornings, frustrations, and sometimes even tears for anything in the world. This has been by far the best experience of my life, so thank you. Thank you to MTV for giving me this chance to be a part of something so great and historic, thank you to my fellow Street Team members for being there  through it all, and thank you to all the people along the way who let me into their lives to ask them the questions that they probably didn’t want to be asked—without all of you this wouldn’t have been possible.