VA News Reader

A-corny story: How one do-gooder profile took root


You could say that this story had roots in a legend, a heroic though mysterious figure whose reputation had grown amid circles as a modern-day Johnny Appleseed of sorts. Who was this guy who purportedly collected acorns by the ton (yes, ton) each fall?  Was it real or an urban myth – or better still, suburban myth?

Meghan McIntyre set out to find out. All she had to go on was a vague lead from her editor at the Virginia Mercury.

“Sarah [Vogelsong] had heard about this man through the grapevine that was notorious for collecting absurd amounts of acorns,” McIntyre remembers. “So, when I came to the Mercury [back in September], she wanted me to find this man, whoever he is.”

As it turns out, it wasn’t all that hard. One well-placed email to the communications office at the Virginia Department of Forestry, and before she knew it, she was on the phone with the legend himself, Mike Ortmeier. 

As McIntyre writes in her story: “Every year, Ortmeier walks up and down the streets within a one-mile radius of his Arlington home each day sweeping up acorns during the roughly one-and-a-half-month collection window.” 

Over the past 13 years, he’s amassed more than 8,000 pounds of acorns. He can collect hundreds of pounds in a day and has accumulated more than 715,000 acorns across eight species of trees. 

For McIntyre, a reporter-intern at the Mercury who is a fifth-year senior at VCU studying digital journalism, the article was the “good news” kind of story that she loves telling. Ever since doing a story about sweatshops in Bangladesh for a writing class, she knew that she wanted to be a reporter, pivoting away from her original major of Social Work.

The story, she hopes, will help create greater awareness about the Acorn collection program run by the Virginia Department of Forestry and perhaps incentivize others to take part. The department plants the acorns at state-run nurseries to grow into seedlings that are, in turn, transplanted throughout the state. The seedlings form the basis of reforestation projects that can decrease carbon in the atmosphere. 

“I had never heard of [the program] before, and everyone I talked to didn’t know about it either,” she said. “But it’s a very important program. Reforestation can help solve so many of our climate crises nowadays.” 

McIntyre was surprised not only to learn about the Acorn collection program, but she also confessed to be taken aback by Ortmeier’s zeal for acorn gathering.

“Before I spoke with him, we all had our theories: How was he doing this? How does he have the time? How can he collect so many?” she remembers. “It wasn’t necessarily surprising to find out that he was retired, and that’s how he had the time, but what is surprising was finding out the vast quantity of acorns he was collecting. I’ve never talked to someone that is so passionate about a little seed, and it’s so wholesome to hear about just this one man who can make so much of a difference.”

And it’s stories like this one, that can make a difference as well. 

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