CNA editorial staff welcomes Jason O’Day

Jason O’Day joined the Creston News Advertiser editorial department as staff reporter May 3. O’Day will cover a variety of meetings and general assignments with some particular attention to agriculture in Union County. O’Day fills the position vacated by Regina Smith, who still provides CNA with her opinion column, “What Matters.”

O’Day, originally from Davenport, moved to Creston from Iowa City after completing his double major in journalism and political science from the University of Iowa.

“Originally, I was going for political science and then I realized I really liked writing and my advisor recommended me picking up journalism as a major because you can’t do it as a minor at Iowa,” O’Day said.

O’Day added his classes gave him experience as a reporter by posing questions for his various assignments in class. He said he enjoyed writing feature stories while at Iowa. In addition to his journalism courses, O’Day also wrote an opinion column for The Daily Iowan, a community paper that serves in conjunction with Iowa City and the university.

O’Day said he has roots in southwest Iowa around Creston and would often stop at Pizza Ranch, or what was formerly the Windrow, for meals with his uncle.

“I’m familiar with the area because one of my uncles has a farm around here, his farm was in Shannon City, so I would come down here and spend a lot of time fishing and bowhunting and turkey hunting and hunting pretty much everything,” he said.

Outside of being an avid outdoorsman, O’Day enjoys watching the show “Shameless” on Netflix.

When it comes to what he’s looking forward to at CNA, O’Day said the sky is the limit as far as what he’s willing to write about in Creston.

“There’s a lot of cool stuff around here that would be fun to cover,” he said.

To welcome O’Day or to send a story idea or news tip, email joday@crestonnews.com or call 641-782-2141 ext. 6439.