Oct. 7, 2025
Story by Rebecca Spezzano, chscommunications@missouri.edu
When senior health science major Tabitha Farley began searching for a summer internship, it seemed like there weren’t many opportunities.
“I knew I was going to be back home for the summer, so I looked up anything that was health-related back home,” she said.
Home for Farley is Waynesville, Missouri, a city of about 5,000 people in the Ozarks region. Although it wasn’t easy to find a health-related internship in rural Missouri, finally uncovered an amazing opportunity as a public health volunteer with the Pulaski County Health Center.
Farley now knows that opportunities exist — you just have to find them. She spent most of her time doing health and safety inspections.
“It was cool to go and see all the places that I’ve been eating at for years and see how they run on the back end,” she said.
Farley also conducted inspections for local fairs, including the Tri-County Fair and the Pulaski County Fair. She said participating in that process was her favorite part of the summer, but those job duties were not her initial expectation going into the internship.
“I went in thinking I would be doing front desk work,” she said. “I ended up being able to actually go out and meet people and help figure out what people in the community wanted from health inspections.”
By connecting with her hometown in a new way, she realized the critical role of local health departments. Based on this hands-on learning in a local setting, Farley strongly encourages others to explore opportunities in their own backyards.