DePauw Stories

This October, over 70,000 people will gather in downtown Indianapolis for the 97th National FFA Convention & Expo, one of the largest annual student gatherings in the world. But the team at Pence Media Group (PMG) will be focused on an even larger number: 1 million. That is roughly how many FFA members and advisors throughout the country will remain at home, unable to make the trip.

As a public relations, media and marketing consultancy based in Carmel, Indiana, PMG supports National FFA through public relations, strategic communications, social media, and other creative services. But in preparation for last year’s convention, this young firm founded by Nicole Pence Becker ’06 – and loaded with talented DePauw alumni – had an appetite to raise the bar. They set out to tackle an ambitious question: How could they provide an immersive convention experience for the entire FFA community, giving those at home an insider’s perspective on the stories that would define the event? It was a question National FFA had asked in the past, but they needed a trusted partner to make it happen.

This perfectly timed alignment resulted in a groundbreaking production that harnessed the creative power of the DePauw network and established a blueprint for what they hope to do again this October – and for many years to come.

“I worked in broadcast journalism for nearly 15 years,” says Pence Becker, a former Emmy-award winning TV anchor and reporter. “I do miss it, and because I miss it, I look for ways that we can elevate our clients through media production.”

Pence Becker knew her team had an opportunity to leverage that experience in service to National FFA by overhauling the traditional newsroom already in place at the convention and updating it with a new focus on broadcast and digital communication.

It was a daunting task that would require a strategic assist to pull off. So Pence Becker reached out to an old friend and trusted collaborator, someone she had known since they first crossed paths two decades earlier at D3TV.

Nicole Halper ’05 is the director of creative strategy at INNOVATIVE, a local agency with an impressive list of clients and an established track record of orchestrating complex projects like the one PMG had in mind. “It made perfect sense for us to team up and take the idea into execution,” Halper notes. “Because Nicole and I have such a history and I’ve worked with PMG on several projects, there’s an inherent DePauw magic between us. We come from the same cloth.”

The two Nicoles put that magic to good use, assembling an expert team interlaced with DePauw connections at every turn. Halper knew it would be a recipe for success. “There’s an inherent, problem-solving, fast-paced urgency that’s unique to DePauw grads. Put us together, and we can do a bunch of stuff almost without even having to speak to each other.”

After months of planning and hundreds or hours of preparation, the joint team from PMG and INNOVATIVE, along with Larry Downes and his team at National FFA, accomplished a remarkable feat. They built a fully functional multimedia newsroom and studio set in the basement of Lucas Oil Stadium and launched "FFA Live! Inside Convention," an hour-long daily recap show featuring in-depth news, interviews, and unprecedented access to all the excitement of National FFA’s biggest event. Pence Becker even dusted off her Emmy-award winning broadcast skills and served as host.

Despite the pressure of working on a strict timeline with limited resources and a massive audience, the project scored a big win for everyone involved. In addition to drawing praise from the event’s key stakeholders and corporate partners, it also received critical acclaim in the form of multiple creative awards and even an Emmy nomination in just its first year.

But the one thing that team members can’t stop talking about isn’t the awards or the numbers or the national impact of their work. It’s the platform they were able to build for mentoring the next generation.

“The best part of the project is not only that we executed it well as professionals,” suggests Pence Becker, “but that we centered the project around the inclusion of student journalists. That value motivated us from the start.”

Although the convention’s newsroom already incorporated internship opportunities for aspiring young reporters, the team from PMG and INNOVATIVE saw a chance to expand that program by exposing students to a more comprehensive and contemporary form of multimedia journalism. Halper notes, “We really wanted to create an environment for student reporters that got them an experience as close to what it would be like to cover an event for a TV station as humanly possible.”

For the interns, the end result would be extremely valuable: a collection of expertly-produced pieces that would anchor their own professional portfolios. But in order to achieve that, each student was responsible for bringing multiple stories to completion each day, demanding that they work efficiently in a fast-paced setting.

Lisa Wallace ’06, senior PR and marketing strategist at PMG, recalls their initial reactions. “Many of the students were overwhelmed on the first day after hearing about their responsibilities and deadlines. They weren’t sure they could do it.” But with the support of a dedicated team and the guidance of experienced professionals, the interns quickly settled in. “It was great to see them grow, even in a matter of five days,” Wallace recalls. “They left with the confidence that they were ready to work in a newsroom.”

Fellow senior PR and marketing strategist Jennifer Bostrom ’07, who served as the show’s news director, found this dynamic especially rewarding. “To be able to mentor and give students opportunities was so fun. Those were very long days. It was a full schedule, and there was always something happening. But the students were willing to spend as much time as needed to track down stories. The energy they brought was amazing.”

Two of those students were DePauw’s own Drew Cosgray ’24 and Mae Crosby ’25. It came as no surprise to the rest of the team that both of them made impressive contributions throughout the week, having been well prepared to deliver an exemplary product, and to do so under pressure.

“It was very noticeable that the DePauw interns had the skill sets to succeed,” observes Wallace. She saw in Cosgray and Crosby that same intangible quality that she recognizes in herself – and in all the other DePauw alumni she works with. “The whole liberal arts experience of DePauw is something that sets you up for being able see the bigger picture, for not getting stuck in the tactical weeds. It gives you a baseline for how to think and grow, and it sets up your mind for how to think creatively.”

Bostrom agrees, highlighting the impact of her education on the skills she uses to serve National FFA and the rest of PMG’s clients. “Being able to be creative and collaborative, to be a critical thinker and a problem solver – that all came from DePauw.”

But the success of "FFA Live! Inside Convention" reveals more than the individual expertise of each contributor. It also showcases the synergistic power of the DePauw network to dream boldly and create something of value as an interconnected team.

“The whole project was a big brainstorm,” says Wallace. “Nothing like this had been done before. There was no model for it.”

Pence Becker goes one step further. “The concept for this show was challenging to execute. When I look back, it almost could have seemed crazy. But I’m proud to say that our small but mighty team was able to help bring the show to life, especially for a client as respected and esteemed as National FFA.”

The success comes as no surprise to Halper. Her confidence in her colleagues and fellow DePauw alumni could not have been stronger. “We all graduated with the same superpower of figuring out how to do something new, how to break new ground.”

Now that the ground is broken, it’s time to keep building. “We’re going to make it even bigger and better this year,” Halper promises, looking forward to the next convention in October. “That’s the ultimate proof of success. They see the magic, and they want to continue it.”

Follow the action next month from Indianapolis – or check out coverage from last year's convention – at the official "FFA Live!" website.