Episode Details

Wendy Corr:

Hey there, folks, welcome to The Roundup. I'm your host, Wendy Corr. And today's guest - there are no words for how far this gentleman has gone to get a great story, and to bring those stories to the rest of us.

Mark Jenkins is a foreign correspondent for National Geographic, he goes and educates people about - and based on - some of the experiences that he has had in literally all the corners of the earth.

And so, I just I don't want to wait any longer to introduce everyone who has not heard of Mark Jenkins - Wyoming, native! Wyoming native, bringing, truly, Wyoming to the world and the other way around.

Hello, Mark. So, so pleased to have you on The Roundup here. Mark, this is this is really a treat, because you have truly lived the life that we can only dream of, really, and read about in books. And you have had adventures that you've narrowly escaped from.

And I just kind of want to get started this morning, because when you and I first started chatting, we talked about where you live - you are a Laramie guy, born and raised - tell us about growing up in Wyoming.

Mark Jenkins:

Growing up in Wyoming, I really believe that was the basis for my career as a journalist. You know, you live in the High Plains, and you learn how to be quite independent, at least in my family that was.

You know, you'd ride your bike all the time out in the prairie. And then when we got a little bit older, we started skiing into the mountains, the Snowy Range, and camping in the winter, trying to prepare ourselves, then we climb Vedauwoo, go to Yellowstone.

I mean, it was a very kind of Huck Finn childhood in this state for me. And I was allowed to make mistakes, and allowed to suffer the consequences of those getting too cold, or getting too hot, or getting too tired. That was part of our family ethic. I'm the oldest of six kids.

So yeah, growing up in Wyoming kind of set me up for my career, because I kind of developed a method for containing your fear. It's quite easy to get freaked out, if you're ice climbing, or if you're very high, if you're on Everest or something like that. And growing up in Wyoming, I learned how to control that.

Wendy Corr:

Oh, my goodness, I bet, especially if you were allowed to go do those things. And you were encouraged and supported to go and have these adventures?

Mark Jenkins:

It seems like to me, I mean, now, parents are very worried about their kids. And so they're always kind of saving them from these difficult situations. My parents were quite different. They figured I needed to learn those things on my own.

So it was a time when you could go out in the wilds and you come close to killing yourself. But when you don't, it makes you stronger.

Wendy Corr:

Of course, then it's an adventure, right?

Mark Jenkins:

Yeah, that's an adventure. And that's what I ended up doing. But I got to, I went to college here at the University of Wyoming, I got a degree in philosophy. I think I was the last one to get a degree in philosophy and not be able to make a living. You know, Aristotle made a living at being a philosopher.

So then I thought I could be a writer, but I failed. I worked as a tinner for two years in construction, that's a person who puts in heating ducts, then decided to go back to UW.

I'd studied humanities and then went back and decided, "Okay, I'm going to study science." So I got a degree in geography. So, basically, a degree in thinking and writing, and then a master's degree in science.

So that actually did end up setting me up for working for National Geographic many