Shellie Nelson Interview, April 30, 2025

Shellie Nelson discusses her work as the editor of the O’Connor Center’s newsletter Headwaters News (later renamed Mountain West News) from 2003 to 2016. She explains how her upbringing on a cattle ranch in the Sandhills of Nebraska sparked her interests in water law and journalism. After earning her paralegal degree, Nelson moved to Missoula and enrolled at the University of Montana’s School of Journalism. Nelson then explains how she worked under Greg Lakes as the assistant editor before becoming the head editor herself in 2003. Nelson describes her responsibilities in publishing the newsletter and how the publication influenced people’s thinking about the West. She also discusses how transformations in online journalism, specifically paywalls, made news aggregator websites such as Headwaters News (Mountain West News) increasingly more challenging to operate.