New CBH reporter loves to tell the community's stories

MOSES LAKE — Nance Beston has always loved finding out things and telling stories. 

“My grandma got me a camera when I was really young,” Beston said. “And as soon as I got that camera, I harassed everyone to get their photos, including random strangers. At a certain point, my dad no longer allowed me to bring it to the store, because I was taking pictures of random people and they were not happy.” 

Beston, who started as a reporter at the Columbia Basin Herald in July, is a native of Great Falls, Mont. They started in journalism early, they said. Her childhood love of photography led them to work on the yearbook at North Middle School, an activity that continued in high school. The same teacher who led the yearbook team also taught journalism, and Beston was hooked. 

“How the class was set up is, we would be assigned stories to put in the yearbook or newspaper, and then we got to go around the school and pull people out of class and do interviews and take pictures of them,” they said. “And I thought that was really fun.” 

After high school, Beston went on to the University of Montana in Missoula, where the curriculum included working on a variety of publications. One of those was Native News, they said. 

“(We) would be sent to reservations in pairs, and we would tell a story about indigenous people from each of the tribes in Montana,” Beston said. “I’m Little Shell Chippewa, so I was one of the only Indigenous people in that classroom. Having Indigenous voices within an Indigenous publication is really important.” 

Beston also worked on the university’s Byline Magazine, and won several awards, including the prestigious Society of Professional Journalists’ 2023 Mark of Excellence, for a series on a transgender teen’s quest to have gender-affirming surgery before a new Montana law banning it went into effect. 

“I was pretty proud of that because I worked my butt off,” Beston said. 

At the Columbia Basin Herald, Beston has found agriculture-related stories especially fascinating. 

“The farmers are really interesting to talk to because they put in a lot of work and effort and you can see the passion behind everything they're doing,” Beston said. “These people are waking up at like five in the morning – which I could not do, because I'm not a morning person – and taking care of crops that will literally feed the world.” 

Beston’s transition to Moses Lake has been an adjustment, she said. 

“It was a shocking revelation when I moved here and there were no mountains because I've never lived anywhere where there were no mountains,” Beston said. “In Great Falls, I was right next to the Rocky Mountains, and in Missoula, I was in a bowl of mountains. And then I moved here, and I was like, ‘Oh, I can see everything.’” 

Beston shares her apartment with a bearded dragon named Neptune who has discovered a taste for blueberries from the Moses Lake Farmers Market. When she’s not covering the news, Beston enjoys various arts, hunting and fishing and paddleboarding on the lake. 

“I really like working here,” the young reporter said. “I feel like I've gotten a lot of opportunities to grow and work on things I have not previously worked on … to learn more than I would have without this career because you have to be really nosy to be a journalist.”