Regan Mertz

About

I joined Aspen Public Radio as the Arts & Culture Reporter in January 2025. Having never been to Colorado before, I have quickly fallen in love with the natural beauty of and the kind people in the Roaring Fork Valley. An army brat, I have lived in ten different states and was born in Alabama but consider Missouri my home. Before moving West, I was living in Columbia, Missouri, and working at KRCG 13, a TV station. I graduated from the Jonathan B. Murray Center for Documentary Journalism, earning a Master of Arts in Documentary and Photojournalism in December 2022. I received my Bachelor of Journalism in Radio and Convergence Journalism from the Missouri School of Journalism in May 2021. Throughout college, I worked at the University of Missouri’s student newspaper, The Maneater, and was published in every Missouri School of Journalism publication: KBIA, KOMU, Vox Magazine, Global Journalist, Missouri Business Alert and the Columbia Missourian. I spent my summers working at my hometown newspaper, the Fort Leonard Wood Guidon, for the J-School’s Missouri Information Corps and the Gateway Journalism Review, as well as a fellow for the Reynolds Journalism Institute, where I worked with The Oregonian and South Dakota Public Radio. During my last semester in graduate school, I worked in Washington, D.C., at the Double Exposure Investigative Film Festival and Symposium and at the Library of Congress as a research assistant for the Watchdog Writers Group. I am a White House Correspondents’ Association scholarship recipient and a Missouri Broadcasters Association, an Edward R. Murrow and a Missouri Press Association Better Newspaper award winner. I have covered everything from conservation and the environment, to infrastructure and transportation, to arts and culture, to local and state politics. When not reporting, I enjoy trying out new hikes with my dog and reading with my cat. I am also learning to ski for the first time this winter.