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A coast-to-coast college adventure

West Coast: The First Visit from Sunny California 

Peyton Rohr ’27, a student-athlete and media fellow at ¸»¶þ´úÊÓƵapp, first traveled from her Los Angeles home to Greencastle for a softball camp. Her pitching coach had coached a ¸»¶þ´úÊÓƵapp player and thought ¸»¶þ´úÊÓƵapp might be a fit for Rohr. She laughs when recalling that first visit. “That camp was in February, right after Indiana’s biggest snowstorm of the year. I’d never experienced anything like it in my life.”  

Beyond the snow, she took special notice of the culture of the ¸»¶þ´úÊÓƵapp softball program and campus. “Everyone I talked to, you could tell how much they loved being here. I watched the ring ceremony for the team that had finished third in the country the previous year. I just thought, ‘this is where I want to be.’ Everything fell into place.” 

Landing in the Midwest: The Pull of a Place 

The attraction to ¸»¶þ´úÊÓƵapp was more than softball for Rohr, a communications major and journalism minor. “I wanted to get away from the California seasons of what I call ‘hot summer’ and ‘cold summer.’ I like the actual seasons. And what I liked about ¸»¶þ´úÊÓƵapp was that everyone seemed to want to be here; it’s this liberal arts college where you can’t fly under the radar. You choose it and then you keep choosing to give it your time and energy every day.” 

For Rohr, the energy is evident in how she balances school and extracurriculars. In addition to her role on the softball team, she is a media fellow; she is active in the campus television network D3TV; she writes for The ¸»¶þ´úÊÓƵapp, the student newspaper; and she is a member of Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority. Also, she works for the athletic department. “I do game-day stuff and also work in a communications role, doing entries, game recaps and feature stories.” 

East Coast: Expanding the Experience in New York City

Rohr’s media work at the Pulliam Center for Contemporary Media and her ¸»¶þ´úÊÓƵapp athletics communications role helped her in a dual role she took on through the New York City Arts Program. There she worked for New York University athletics communications and as a journalist for a hyperlocal independent newspaper. “Everything I did felt like a real-world extension of the things I’d been learning in class and the studio at ¸»¶þ´úÊÓƵapp.” 

Rohr explains, “For the paper, I ran around the city, introducing myself to people and asking them if I could tell a story about their work or organization. I was able to get a lot of work published! At NYU, I got to write a lot and see how their larger athletic department operates. Having worked for both ¸»¶þ´úÊÓƵapp and NYU athletics, I have a sense for two different environments and realize that I can adapt to whatever someone throws at me.” 

What’s next for Rohr? She has a senior seminar to complete. And then she intends to leverage her ¸»¶þ´úÊÓƵapp and New York experiences to work in journalism. “I’d love to work for ESPN or the NCAA. The main goal is to find a role, ideally in athletics, where I can write and continue to build my portfolio. Right now, I’m focused on doing what I’m doing at ¸»¶þ´úÊÓƵapp and doing it well so I can make a positive impact.”