Student Does Thing, Makes News

University of Iowa sophomore Jake Butternut did a thing on Tuesday and made the news.

“It’s an honor,” Butternut said. “To receive this kind of recognition for the thing I did, it’s really something.

After months of planning and hard work, this thing finally came together into the thing I was trying to do the whole time.”

The thing that Butternut accomplished was not only important to the UI community, but interesting enough to be judged newsworthy by people that make those sorts of decisions.

“When this thing came across our desk the whole newsroom lit up,” said local newsperson Lia Collins. “I turned to our editor and said: ‘this is a thing that will make the news.’ And I’ll be damned—it has.”

Administrator Chet Steelskin expressed his admiration for the thing, and emphasized that Jake has shown that when students set their minds to do a thing, they can often do the thing and maybe make the news sometimes.

“We love to see students reach out and do things,” Steelskin said. “Of course lots of other students have done things before, but this thing was unique in that was an amazing thing done by an average person that local newspapers recognized as important enough a thing to be a part of all the other things they cover.”

What’s next for Butternut? Well, he’s definitely got her eyes on something.

“What this thing represents is just the first step in doing a lot of different things related to the first thing I did. It’s a start, something to build off of—but make no mistake—the final goal is definitely going to be a thing.”