Fresh From the frank Stage

Standout talks from the most recent 2023 gathering, featuring bold voices, urgent truths and unforgettable moments.

Amahra Spence

Liberation Rehearsal Notes from a Time Traveler

Shanelle Matthews

Narrative Power Today for an Abolitionist Future

Nima Shirazi

Irresistible Forces, Immovable Objects

The Speaker


Jessica Wells Public Information Assistant at Onslow County Schools

Jessica Coston Wells is a Public Information Assistant at Onslow County Schools with a background in education and communications from UNC Chapel Hill. She focuses on media relations and community engagement to enhance transparency and support school initiatives, fostering strong connections between schools and their communities.

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The Speaker


Big Ideas from Small Places

Behavioral ScienceCreativityProblem SolvingPublic ServiceStorytelling

Transcript


So I’d like to start off by saying how grateful I am to be here with all of you guys today. I look around and I see hundreds of brilliant communicators and that’s what really makes this event so great. Although I didn’t get a chance to work with Frank, I feel like my life and my career have been so profoundly affected by him through Professor Cristiano and I know that that’s true for many of us in the audience today. I graduated from the College of Journalism and Communications in 2012 and I took every class that I could with Professor Cristiano and it was during one of her classes that I realized public interest communications is what I wanted to do with my life. However I was a little bit inflicted about where to move after graduation. I looked up to all of you who are in New York and D.C. your agencies, foundations and non-profits but I knew that one of those places, the larger cities, wasn’t going to be my home. I never felt quite comfortable there. It never felt like home to me in Northwest Florida in my tiny rural town that I love so much and I’m so proud of. So when my fiance got offered a job in Raleigh, North Carolina that made the decision even harder, should I stay in the southeast or should I branch out and try to move somewhere else. And I was afraid that if I didn’t move to one of the larger cities I wouldn’t have a chance at an amazing career in public interest communications and I spent plenty of time in Professor Cristiano’s office agonizing over it. Plenty of time. But after weighing the pros and cons I decided to take a chance and move to Raleigh. And for months I thought that I had made a huge mistake. Now that I’m settled into my job at the North Carolina League of Municipalities which provides insurance, advocacy and other services to almost every city and town in North Carolina I know that it wasn’t a mistake because now I don’t have just one small hometown to be proud of. I have about 500. And I love being their advocate and storyteller. I love spreading big ideas from small places like Dillsboro, North Carolina. Dillsboro is a small town of about 500 that’s tucked into the mountains and one person knew that he could make it better by recycling excess methane from a retired landfill instead of paying to have it carried off like everybody else does. He wanted to use this methane to power a glass blowing and metalworking foundry. And Naysayers told him that he would never get the gas hot enough to forge steel. But he did. And now the Jackson County Green Energy Park is the only blacksmithing studio in the world that’s powered by landfill gas. Yeah, it’s pretty amazing. It is, the park not only benefits the environment but it benefits the economy too because artists can prepare their works there and then sell them on Main Street. And it’s prevented about 222 tons of methane from entering the atmosphere. So I hope that when you’re deciding where to take your career you remember that big ideas can come from small places. Thank you. Thank you.

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