After growing up in Pullman, Anna Adams went to England for a year. But once the year was up, she realized she still had more to do in the tiny town she had lived in her entire life.
Adams, senior multimedia major, said after living in the college town her entire life, she was ready to get out of Pullman.
When her senior year of high school came around, she did not know what she wanted to do, and her friend told her about Capernwray Bible School in England. Adams said she had the finances for it, and one of her friends was going to attend as well, so she decided to take that step and not only get out of Pullman, but get out of the country and experience something new.
“I definitely don’t regret that. I think that was the best decision of my life, to get out,” she said. “I just met so many people from different cultures, from different backgrounds and learned so many new things at that college.”
A year later, when she went back to Pullman, she felt like she had not completely taken advantage of her time in the town when she was growing up and she wanted to leave with good memories.
She grew up with the WSU culture, and both of her parents and her older sister attended WSU as well, so she wanted to experience the culture herself, she said.
“I just felt like growing up here wasn’t enough,” she said.
Adams said she came to WSU as a public relations major. She knew she wanted to be involved in the communications field because she did speech and debate in high school and competed at the national level every year since she was 14.
She chose the public relations track because she did not have a vision for her future at that point, but when she went through her classes, she saw two separate sides: advertising and journalism, she said. After taking COM 300, she discovered her love for journalism, so she switched majors at the end of her junior year.
Cable 8 Productions was a big factor in her switching majors as well, she said. She joined the organization in the second semester of her junior year because she felt she needed to be involved with something during her career at WSU.
She became an assistant producer for a sports show, “Coug on the Clock,” and was responsible for social media for Wazzu Sports Network. She then went on to become an assistant producer for “CougZone,” continuing social media, covering sports on the sidelines and in the studio and helping produce the show.
“It just opened so many opportunities for me and I now have things to show employers of me anchoring and news reporting,” Adams said. “And I felt so much more confident in what I have learned in my classes.”
Cristian Gonzalez, fifth-year senior broadcast production and multimedia major, is the director of “CougZone” and “Wazzu Recap,” and has been working with Adams for the last year and a half.
Gonzalez said Adams is one of his go-to people because if he needs something done, especially on the social media side of things, she does a great job at making sure it gets done and coordinating with other people.
“Our social media accounts have grown tremendously since she’s taken over, I think just about 100 followers on Instagram alone,” he said.
A big goal Gonzalez had for social media was getting into TikTok, because it is a valuable social media platform and can be utilized for any company or brand.
“She’s gotten on top of that. We’re pushing out a lot of content, which I think is really nice,” he said. “She does a good job.”
Gonzalez said now that the shows are ending and people involved are not constantly in the studio, he is going to miss having Adams around to chat or help with a job.
Whenever Gonzalez asked her to do something, she would get it done no questions asked. He said recently, he needed multiple Instagram posts scheduled throughout a few days, and she was able to get them done early.
“I just really appreciate everything she’s done for me,” he said. “Just the fact that I can tell her to do something and I can trust her creative instincts to do it, not the way I want it to be but the way she wants it to be. I think that’s a value and a worker that’s really hard to find.”
During her senior year, Adams had friends who encouraged her to join The Daily Evergreen, but the idea of interviewing people and writing something that would be published intimidated her and she did not think she had it in her. But she realized the only thing she had on her resume was Cable 8, and it was her senior year, so she wanted more experience to show her capabilities.
When she joined this past October as a life reporter and wrote her first published article, she said she had an ‘I did that’ moment when she read it.
Eventually, she became the multimedia editor and wrote for the sports section as well.
When a change of leadership called for an open managing editor position, she was asked to step into the role. Adams said she did not want it because she did not feel ready or capable. But she realized she needed to take the opportunities in front of her and do her best.
“What I’ve learned throughout my career at WSU is once you say yes to something, everything else follows after,” she said. “You just kind of need to say yes and take the step forward…Taking the job has been more responsibility, but I don’t regret it.”
Adams said she is not entirely sure what she wants to do after graduating on Saturday, but the big dream for her is to be a journalist who brings light to issues in local communities and the country in general.
“I love to be able to take time and do in-depth studies and take the time to research people that are really going through hardships, just real-life stories and bringing them to light so that people can be aware of issues happening,” she said.
Ideally, she would like to be a reporter so she can have the opportunity to take on these stories and report on the community because individual lives are important to her.
“We should be focusing on our own lives and what’s going on in the community and how we can better ourselves and what events are happening in the culture around us,” she said. “I think if people pay more attention to that, the world would be a better place and I would love to be a part of contributing to that.”
Her experiences in England and at WSU have helped her grow as a person and prepare for life outside of college.
Adams said attending a bible school in another country helped her grow in her faith, which is central to who she is as a person. Being able to learn so much from so many different people with different opinions, views and interpretations of the scripture helped her be more open-minded as well.
At WSU, she has been able to surround herself with a culture where she has never needed to doubt herself, and once she decided to say yes to opportunities given to her, she found people who were supportive of her.
“Everyone was so good at what they did and so passionate about what they were learning about. That just really turned my head in the right direction…and be passionate about what I’m learning about,” Adams said. “The whole culture of Murrow College and everyone involved in the Evergreen and Cable 8 doing their best really inspired me to do my best.”
