Abigail Pittman awarded Bell Grant through Boyd's Station Project

Another group of Boyd’s Station Project 306.36 collegians have begun to arrive in Harrison County.

Abigail Pittman, 20, will be entering her senior year at the University of North Carolina, majoring in journalism, during the 2023-24 school year.

Originally from Four Oaks, NC, Abigail arrived in Harrison County on Sunday, May 21.

She is the recipient of a $3,000 Bell Family Storytelling Grant and will be chronicling Harrison County, along with two other Boyd’s Station grant winners, until August of this year.

“Because I’m also from a rural area in North Carolina, I’m interested in what rural storytelling can look like given time,” Pittman said on Monday, “Working with the Boyd’s Station project would give me tools to document my hometown. I’m confident that, again given time, one could find equally interesting and important stories as in a metropolitan area. Voices in rural areas are not heard often, especially minority voices, and it’s important to recognize both things.”

Although she will graduate with a degree in journalism, Abigail intends to focus on photographer while she is at Boyd’s Station, and beyond.

“I got started with photographer in high school as a way to connect with people and for the artistic content that photography includes,” she said.

After college, Abigail intends to pursue a career in photography.

“Ideally I would like to do documentary photography and make enough money to take care of myself,” she laughed.

Joining Abigail this summer will be two Ivy League students. Lukas Flippo was awarded the Reinke Grant for photojournalism and Sophia Liang was awarded the $3,000 Mary Withers Rural Writing Fellowship.

Flippo is attending Yale University and Liang is a student at Harvard University.

Both of those Boyd’s Station Project students will be featured next week in the Cynthiana Democrat.