Each Thursday, WKU’s Student Chapter of NPPA brings you some of the best images of the past week taken by our very own classmates. To submit for our weekly posts, you must currently be a WKU Photojournalism student and have taken the images or produced the video within the last week (Tuesday to Tuesday). Send your top 1-5 selections to wkunppa@gmail.com by our Tuesday 6:30pm deadline and our officers and attendees will pick the best of the bunch to showcase at our open meetings every Tuesday at 7pm in Lab 127.
Melanie Durrett, 22, of Hodgenville Ky. sits with her boyfriend of a year Derail Shelton and their dog Cochece in their temporary home, The Holiday Motel in Cave City, Ky. The two have been living there for about a month. “I’ve been trying to find work”, Durrett says, “It’s been real hard, a mixture of the recession and my hand tattoos.” KATIE MCLEAN
Reynalda Ruiz, of Chicago, Ill., watches over neighborhood children playing in a fenced-off alleyway between apartment buildings in the Pilsen neighborhood on Friday, October 4, 2013. “I’m just babysitting for a friend,” said Ruiz, “just helping out. This isn’t a job, they wouldn’t be able to pay me anyway. The economy never changes, this is just normal. This is how it always is.” DANNY GUY
During the wedding ceremony of Jamijo Gilbert and TIm Carter, Jody Garrett, mother of Jamijo, is kissed on the forehead by her life partner Bill Surian. Though they had planned the wedding to be next June, Jamijo and Tim were married on Oct. 4, 2013 at Covenant Health Care’s Chapel due to Jody’s recent diagnosis of terminal cancer. “It’s always a mother’s dream to see her little girl get married,” Jody said after the ceremony. SAMMY JO HESTER
Smiling as she stands in the doorway of her food truck along Veterans Memorial Ln in Bowling Green, 56 year old Barbara Jackson patiently waits for her next customer. “They’ll come, they know the food’s good,” she said with a laugh. A nurse by trade, Barbara usually spends her days at Tristar Skyline medical center in Nashville but her passion has always been food, so for extra money she started cooking for the masses and set up shop selling what she calls the best BBQ in Bowling Green. BRIAN POWERS
Ear and throat cancer were not enough to stop Butch Elrod of Rockfield, Ky. Elrod, a 30 year truck driving veteran, who has driven over 3 million miles during his career. After retiring in 2006 Elrod traded his 16 wheels for 2 and has driven cross country on his Harley Davidson motorcycle twice. “I’m gonna live how I wanna live,” Elrod said while spending time with a friend in Bowling Green on Monday, October 07, 2013. When he is not on his motorcycle, Elrod’s other passion is horses and he stays busy raising over 30 of them on his Rockfield farm. BRIAN POWERS
Photographers photograph the sunrise at Oxbow Bend in the Grand Teton National Park which was closed later that day due to the government shut down in Moose, DC on Tuesday October 1, 2013. JABIN BOTSFORD
As an artist of many mediums, Finland native and Louisville, Ky., resident Marjaleena Pihlajamaki, 59, finds that most of her creativity comes from laying in bed. “The TV is on, the music is loud, the cat is laying right down there and my easel is right in front of me,” Pihlajamaki said. “I’m most creative when I’m most comfortable.” Since moving to the Derby City her art forms have expanded to hat and jewelry creations, which she sells in a small Bardstown Road storefront. SALLY JEAN WEGERT
James Earl Johnson sits in his new home, previously used as a storage unit. Johnson is retired but spent the majority of his life working construction and most recently working at the ACK Controls Factory in Glasgow, Ky. KATIE MCLEAN