CMU Mass Communication Graduate Wins Two Heartland Emmy Awards

Recent graduate Wylee Mitchell was recognized for two short films inspired by ranch life and agricultural storytelling

Wylee Mitchell, who graduated this month with a Bachelor of Arts in Mass Communication and a Technical Certificate in Digital Filmmaking: Writing/Directing Principles, won two 2026 Heartland Emmy Awards through the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Heartland Chapter’s Student Production Awards. Her short film Pearson Family Ranch won in the Non-Fiction Short Form category, and Life of a Ranch Kid won in the Fiction Short Form category.

“It feels amazing,” Mitchell said. “I got to apply all of my hard work over these four years and everything that I’ve learned.”

For Mitchell, both award-winning projects were inspired by the lifestyle she grew up in and the kind of stories she hopes to keep telling.

“I love storytelling. That has always been my passion,” Mitchell said. “Coming to college, I found out that video is my favorite way to tell stories. With Life of a Ranch Kid and Pearson Family Ranch, they’re both really important stories to me because they’re focused on Western heritage and how I grew up.”

Mitchell is originally from Nevada and grew up around ranching. Her family ran 250 head of cattle themselves, while her parents also managed a 750-head ranch for the owners.

That background helped shape Life of a Ranch Kid, a short film starring her niece Harper. The film dramatizes the expectations placed on children raised in the Western lifestyle by showing a 3-year-old completing tasks typically handled by adults, including operating equipment, cleaning horse corrals, driving a truck and riding horses.

The image of a small child taking on adult ranch work is exaggerated for humor, but Mitchell said it also reflects the responsibility that often comes with growing up in that kind of environment.

“It’s kind of satirical. It’s funny because there’s this little kid that’s doing all of these adult things,” Mitchell said. “But I also think it’s really true to what we’re expected to do when we grow up in that lifestyle.”

Her nonfiction project, Pearson Family Ranch, started with her involvement in Taking Stock: Ranching Women of Colorado, an oral history project led by Assistant Professor of Mass Communication Laurena Davis and Instructor of Mass Communication Greg Mikolai.

Mitchell was part of the project team, helping film interviews, gather b-roll, capture drone footage and document daily ranch life in the field. The team traveled to communities across western Colorado, recording interviews and footage that will eventually become part of the Library of Congress American Folklife Center’s Occupational Folklife Project.

During an emotional interview with Hayley Pearson at Pearson Family Ranch, the story became even deeper than the team expected. After hearing Pearson describe the ranch's importance and its impact on her family, the team decided the story should be further explored. Mitchell then returned to the ranch and shaped the material into a documentary short focused on ranching, family, responsibility and the work that often goes unseen in agricultural life.

The project required her to schedule and conduct interviews, gather b-roll, film in active ranch conditions and edit the final documentary. It also challenged her to find the best story inside hours of footage while working through the practical demands of filming on a ranch.

“I was really proud of how both of them turned out,” Mitchell said. “But it was really rewarding to see that other people thought that they were good as well.”

Mitchell credited CMU’s mass communication program, CMU-TV and her faculty mentors with helping her grow into the filmmaker she is today. She said Mikolai played a major role in teaching her the technical and creative skills behind video production.

“Greg Mikolai has been a huge mentor to me as a professor and helped me with everything,” Mitchell said. “Everything I know related to video is because of him.”

She also credited fellow mass communication student Maccoy Abeyta, who she met through CMU-TV, for supporting and collaborating with her throughout her time at CMU.

“It truly is a testament to CMU because when I got here, I didn’t even know how to turn on a [Sony] PXW camera,” Mitchell said. “And now I am graduating, and I have a full-time job lined up in the field.”

Mitchell served as general manager of CMU-TV for the past two years, volunteered with the organization throughout her college career and was also on the CMU rodeo team. Her work has been recognized before, including a nomination last year for her short film Stasis. She was also the editor on a student music video project that won a 2025 Heartland Emmy.

CMU-TV students were also nominated this year in the Live Sporting Event/Game category for Maverick Stampede 2025. The nominated student team included Jordan Neifert, Jordan Browning, Kylie Hoffman, Kaiser Branson, Samantha Espinoza, Isaac Klein, Isabella Alpert, Maccoy Abeyta, Joseph Deras, Grace Metcalf and Breana Sinclair. 

For Mitchell, the recognition from the award marks the end of her time as a CMU student and kicks off the beginning of a career that will still be rooted in storytelling. She hopes to continue making films and documentaries as passion projects, especially stories connected to ranching, agriculture and Western life.

Her dream is to travel the world to film and tell stories for an outlet like National Geographic. For now, she is leaving CMU with two Heartland Emmys, a growing portfolio and a clearer sense of the stories she wants to tell next.