The RoundHouse | 2/11/2020 5:19:00 PM
Where are they now?
Nelsen Petersen - cross country (1984-89)
As junior in high school, Nelsen Petersen signed up for a foreign exchange program.
"I put in for any place," he said. "They told me that if you're open to anything, you'll get in."
The program sent Petersen, who attended Concordia High School, to Kenya. He loved that assignment because he loved running as much as he loved traveling. He grew up in a house full of National Geographic magazines and maps.
"It couldn't have been any better," he said. "Until I got there and the program basically folded. I was there through the summer and up to Thanksgiving, most of it fending for myself. I basically thumbed around East Africa as a 17-year-old. You can't really do that anymore."
That experience of hitch-hiking through Kenya, sleeping in open spaces and thatched huts, opened the door to a lifetime of traveling and working and working in order to do more traveling.
"After having done that, I basically figured out there are things about the world you cannot learn in (school)," he said. "When I give a talk now, here's the theme: Look into the unknown. What do I know about Zambia? Well, I can read about it. Or I can go."
Petersen estimates he traveled to more than 40 countries over the past 20 years.
Petersen earned a Harry Gore Memorial Scholarship and came to Wichita State in 1984 to run and major in biology. Running remains a major part of his life through coaching middle schoolers in Lincoln, Neb. He combined his love of running and travel into a career that started in video producing and now reaches into books and documentaries.
"I am not the guy you should hire for career day," he said. "I thought I would teach biology or end up tagging pronghorns in Wyoming."
On Wednesday, Petersen will discuss"Selfies With Sacajawea: The Corps of Re-Discovery on The Lewis and Clark Trail," at the Advanced Learning Library, 711 W. 2ndStreet. The talk begins at 1:30 p.m
The 2018 book details Petersen and a friend retracing the journey of the explorers.
Early wave of video
Petersen remembers watching an interview after a race in Wisconsin and the questions made him cringe. He figured he could do much better.
"Those guys would rather be at the Packers game," he said. "It dawned on me that there aren't too many people covering the sport of distance running who really know what they're talking about."
Petersen combined his love of running with his background in video to start his first career. He filmed races and conducted interviews to produce highlights and documentaries. In the early days, race organizers used his tapes to attract sponsors. When the Internet grew, he posted on his website and on YouTube.
"Marathoning took this second boom," he said. "Every town has a marathon. I ended up being the guy, I would say, between the mountains, Appalachians to the Rockies, to come to your race and put together from a five-minute marketing piece to full-blown documentaries. I loved every bit of it because it kept me in the running community."
Petersen got his start in video as a youngster in Concordia. His father worked as a meteorologist, which gave him access to equipment. Peterson explored the Republican River to make his own wildlife documentaries.
"After a good rain, the sandbars would shift and create little pools and if you were lucky there would be a huge catfish caught in one," he said.
New creative direction
In 2015, Petersen began to change his focus to documentaries and books. A project documenting the introduction of baseball to Ukraine started him on the different path.
"Now, it's just straight documentaries and writing the books," he said.
He worked on Kansas biographies, including on former governor and senator Frank Carlson and a series of videos about Lewis and Clark designed for schools. That work turned into his 2018 book "Selfies With Sacajawea: The Corps of Re-Discovery on The Lewis and Clark Trail."
"It's a funny story about two guys driving this piece of junk car out to the coast on the Lewis and Clark Trail," he said. "Halfway through, I said 'I think I'm going to write a book about this.'"
His second book details a four-week trip through Africa retracing Henry Stanley's trip searching for Dr. Livingstone.
His kind of teacher
While Petersen didn't go into his field of study, he fondly remembers some of his classes. Professor Donald Distler, who died in 2017, taught biology at Wichita State for more than 50 years.
"He was my favorite," Petersen said. "It was the class where you would go out to the Ninnescah (Reserve) and it was real hands-on. Real ecology-based, trapping things, and I just loved it."
Petersen walked on to the cross country team at Wichita State. The Shockers won the Missouri Valley Conference title in 1987, although Petersen didn't run in the meet.
"I loved running at Wichita State," he said. "I still run just about every day, It still boils down to this curiosity thing. I'm 53. What can I run this 5,000 meters in?"
Paul Suellentrop covers Wichita State Athletics and the American Athletic Conference for university Strategic Communications. Story suggestion? Contact him at paul.suellentrop@wichita.edu.
