As a part of the GreatNews.Life (GNL) social media team, Isabella “Izzy” Evers is using her creative design skills and media expertise to bring posts about Northern Indiana’s all-positive news to life across the digital landscape.
Evers first became interested in the field while at Indiana State University in Terre Haute where an opportunity to work in social media piqued her interest. That experience made her realize she wanted to further pursue social media as a career, which made the job at GNL a perfect fit post graduation.
“In college, I worked in Indiana State's science department and ran their social media. That was really fun,” Evers said. “I got to make videos and interview people, and I liked that a lot. Once I graduated from college I knew I wanted to do something similar.”
While Evers worked for the science department in school, she was actually enrolled as an English major. The science world was a brand new game to Evers, but she was eager to take on the challenge and learn things along the way. It led to some fun and engaging learning opportunities, which she would have not come across otherwise.
“I was an English major – the science work was very much out of my realm. I think science is cool, but studying it wasn't something that I was super interested in at first,” Evers said. “On the campus job posting, I saw that they were looking for a social media person, and I thought it would be cool to learn science as I was working. I got to interview a lot of students and grad students and learn a lot about fields like environmental science and archeology, which was really, really interesting.”
A particular favorite project of hers was a series of TikTok videos highlighting the process of erosion.
“A lot of what I did was working with what was basically a glorified sandbox that water goes through,” Evers said. “It showed a sped up version of erosion, which is kind of like how rivers and landscapes are formed with water and flooding and such. I made a lot of videos on TikTok for that, and that was a really fun project.”
Outside of expanding her social media skills and capturing the action of cool science projects across campus, Evers was also a part of Indiana State’s Residence Hall Association all four years of college. This really allowed her to dive into the campus community and find a home away from home.
“That was my introduction to being on campus and extracurriculars, and I really enjoyed it,” Evers said. “I managed to be vice president of the whole organization my senior year, which was fun. I made a lot of friends doing it. That was my biggest social thing on campus. I got to meet a lot of the staff and a lot of the students in ways that I wouldn’t have been able to if I was just going to my classes. We got to host a lot of fun events on campus and go to a lot of leadership conferences and stuff like that, which was nice.”
Evers fell in love with Indiana State’s campus from the very first visit. It was the only one she was able to tour ahead of time due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but the school’s small size and strong community camaraderie quickly made her realize this was the school for her. Evers grew up in a small town, so being able to find a school with a similar feel made her feel right at home, even if she was actually hours away.
“I applied to a couple of different schools, but Indiana State was the only one that I got to tour before COVID shut everything down. Since it was the only place that I went to and it was a smaller campus, I decided to go there, and it was really nice,” Evers said. “Because it was a smaller campus, there were a lot of one-on-ones with the professors, and it wasn't as big as other schools. Because of that, I liked it a lot. The campus was really nice. All of the people there were really great. It was definitely different from growing up in a little farming community, but I got used to it pretty fast. It wasn't a crazy hard transition, it was just different at first.”
Evers hails from the rural town of Union Mills and attended South Central High School. While on the smaller side, Evers has always loved its charm and even lives on a farm in the area.
“I live out in the country,” Evers said. “Union Mills is very small, and it's mostly all country, but there's a little downtown. I live out there on a farm, which is cool.”
Evers loves the community she grew up in. Being a part of a close-knit community has allowed her to find lifelong friends and much more, and she couldn’t be more grateful for her small-town roots.
“I honestly enjoyed going to such a small school – when I would talk to people in college about how their high school was, they said they would move school from elementary to middle school and all of that, but I graduated from high school with the same kids who I went to preschool and daycare with,” Evers said. “It was fun to have those lifelong friends who I'm still best friends with today because we grew up together.”