Scott Schultz started working last year as the assistant farm director at WAXX 104.5 radio in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, and is expanding into other roles at Mid-West Family Broadcasting’s Eau Claire stations. The long-time print journalist recently joined NAFB after making his broadcasting debut last fall. “I’m excited about this new challenge in my life,” Schultz said. “I’ve known WAXX Farm Director Bob Bosold for many years, and each day I look forward to working with someone so talented and respected.” Schultz earned awards in news writing, feature writing, headlines, and design during more than 40 years in the newspaper business. He was raised on a central Wisconsin dairy farm. His journalism career started while serving in the U.S. Marine Corps, which led him to study journalism at the Defense Information School and through Indiana University, University of Missouri, and Pepperdine University. He worked as a combat correspondent, public affairs noncommissioned officer, and base newspaper editor. After returning to Wisconsin, he worked for daily and weekly newspapers in the state. That work included a 23-year stint as a regional editor and managing editor of The Country Today, an Eau Claire-based publication which then was Wisconsin’s largest paid-subscription rural-life weekly newspaper. During that time, he founded a non-profit educational organization, The Heartbeat Center for Writing, Literacy and the Arts, Inc. Schultz briefly left journalism to work for two years as executive director of the Wisconsin Farmers Union and to give more attention to his nonprofit work. Through The Heartbeat Center, Schultz founded The Pulse, a free-distribution weekly newspaper that went to 13,000 homes in the region south of Eau Claire. Publication of The Pulse was halted so the non-profit’s resources could be refocused on its educational mission. He and his wife, Dee, operate The Heartbeat Center on their Eimon Homestead farm along Eimon Road, between Pigeon Falls and Osseo in Wisconsin. Schultz often lectures about writing and creativity in elementary, secondary, and post-secondary schools and at The Heartbeat Center. Essays, newspaper stories, and photographs by Schultz have appeared in several state and national publications, and have been used in a national rural life project. A collection of his essays was organized into the book, Rural Routes and Ruts: Roaming the Roads of Rural Life, which has been used in universities’ creative writing, rural sociology, and library science programs. He continues work on other book projects including Rural Rerouted, another collection of his essays. Schultz also coached high-school wrestling and football for more than 20 years; and he also worked as a Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association wrestling and football official. His community work has included local, county, and regional economic development projects, including initiating proposals for siting the Wisconsin Vietnam Veterans Memorial – which became The Highground Veterans’ Memorial Park – near Neillsville, Wisconsin. He also served on the state Department of Public Instruction’s Council for Rural Schools, Libraries and Communities, and on the Marshfield Clinic Medical Research Foundation Personalized Medicine Advisory Committee, and many local and state agricultural committees and boards. He’s a past president of the Central Wisconsin Press Club, and he has served on the National Farm Medicine Center Advisory Council, church councils in Greenwood and Pigeon Falls, and several communities’ chambers of commerce.
