Like so many members of the Agriculture Communicator’s Network, Laura Temple was raised on a farm, learning from the daily chores of her parent’s small swine herd and the long hours of harvest.
Fulton, Illinois (home of the Fulton High School Steamers), wasn’t necessarily a farming community, although ag was all around. Fulton High didn’t even have an FFA Chapter at the time. Yet when she settled on attending the University of Illinois, she remembered that her high school teachers gave her high marks for her ability to write.
“I wanted to study something in agriculture, and ag communications is a major,” recalls Temple, a longtime ACN member. She settled on public relations. That major proved to be a wise choice.
Temple graduated from the University of Illinois and began working for [LT1] a public relations agency in the Chicago area, covering what was then Dow AgroSciences. “I found that I loved it,” she says. She spent six years at the agency before moving to [LT2] an ag technology company. After a year there, she moved back to the agency for four years, before striking out on her own as a freelance marketing communications specialist.
“Public relations is thinking about what is actually useful to writers and broadcasters, and even more than that, being respectful. If there was something that I could help them with, I wanted to provide valuable information to help them tell the story,” Temple says.
In 2012, Temple embarked upon a freelance career. Her time meeting and networking journalists as a PR professional helped that transition. She has written for commodity groups, lenders, seed and chemical companies and more.
As a freelancer, she joined what was then the American Agricultural Editors Association (AAEA). Attending Ag Media Summit and regional workshops have been critical for her own professional improvement, and also for developing a network of like-minded communicators.
“Now that I’m a freelancer, there is not a group of people that you chitchat with on a regular basis like you would at an agency. The list of people I call when I just need to talk about work are other freelancers. Those are the relationships I’ve built through being part of ACN,” she explains.
“I love freelancing. I can make a living doing it, and I love the flexibility,” she says. “I just spent a couple days helping my brother and dad with harvest, and freelancing gives me the flexibility to work where I’m at.”