WOODBURY, Minn. – It was the first day of her freshman year at the University of Mary in Bismarck, and Amelia Gold’s stomach was grumbling. So she risked asking a fellow student she’d just met at orientation to possibly grab lunch with her.
Autumn Kotrba’s “Yes!” led to an abiding friendship. They became roommates, shared classes as communications majors, and swapped stories of living life boldly as young Christians. Gold describes Kotrba as down to earth and very joyful.
“She has a presence to her that’s just real and different than a lot of people I’ve met.” Despite their similarities, their lives also contrast in ways. Gold grew up in this suburb city with one brother, while Kotrba, the oldest of eight children, spent much of her childhood in rural Moorhead, among sheep, chickens, pigs, a few llamas, a donkey, dogs and cats.
“It’s been very inspiring to say the least,” Gold says, noting that, along with full-time school, Kotrba works at a news station in Bismarck as an evening production assistant, and as program director for a Just For Kix dance studio. ADVERTISEMENT She’s also produced a documentary, “ Come and See ,” detailing a 10-day mission trip to a poverty-stricken area of Peru last summer, which she experienced with eight fellow parishioners, ages 14 to adult, through their home parish, Holy Spirit Church in Fargo. “It’s cool to see her so focused at 20 years old, working on so many different things, and so passionate,” Gold says.
“She was so excited to go to Peru, and when she got back, every story she told for two months was about that trip.” At the time, Kotrba had been doing part-time work for the parish as a digital content producer; a two-year stint that ended this past May. It seemed a natural fit for Kotrba’s interests.
She was about 9, she says, when she told her parents, before a career day at school, that she wanted to be a movie director. “I made my own clapboard and wrote a script and everything for it,” she says. “Ever since then, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I wanted to make movies.
” In high school, she was always watching “behind the scenes” documentaries, and started to wonder if she could do that professionally someday. The communications program at U-Mary pulled her in. Kotrba says she loves how with film, you can help the audience experience what the characters are feeling, often with few or no additional words.
“If you know how to effectively combine all the different mediums, you get something that’s magical.” Kotrba got early practice doing video work on the family farm, which runs a nonprofit organization seeking a cure for Huntington’s disease. “Harvest Hope Farm gave me a way to start to figure out my own voice within video,” Kotrba says, allowing her to begin learning the art of visual storytelling.
While in Peru, the group built a home for a family, provided a wheelchair to a child with a brain abnormality, and fed fish and bread to 300 local residents. All this was captured by Kotrba, who decided not to narrate the film but allow the missionaries to tell the story. ADVERTISEMENT Her co-producer, the Rev.
Ross Laframboise, helped her plot out the approach. “It started coming together in my head while I was there,” she says. On their return flight, Kotrba jotted down notes on what to include.
“I didn’t bring a laptop or watch any (of the footage) until we got back to the States,” she says. “I let it simmer for 48 hours.” But then she got to work, reviewing hours of video, including post-trip interviews—12 hours’ worth.
She got the title, “Come and See,” from the book of John in the Bible, when Jesus called his disciples to “Come and see the good works of the Lord.” “God calls all of us, but he called us nine especially for this journey,” she says. “Everyone is called to come and see the good works of the Lord.
We just need to keep our eyes open for those opportunities.” As her journalism teacher at the university, Patricia Traynor has had a chance to observe Kotrba in action and calls her an amazing person who asks the hard questions. “She wants to know more, and she knows that the worst they can say is ‘No,” which is the same as if you never asked the question.
” Traynor says that when Kotrba realized “she’d been doing journalism all along,” she “just lit up with interest,” and soon landed a job at the local television station with little experience and no degree. “She does so much and she always has a smile on her face—and she works hard!” Ryan Blank, a Kansas native and University of Arizona graduate, met Autumn in the fall of 2023 while working at KX News as a sports reporter and anchor. Soon thereafter, the two began dating.
Blank, who is Jewish, says one of the things he admires most about Kotrba, along with her being “full throttle” on everything she does, is her faith. “She talks so much about that trip (to Peru),” he says, noting that watching her develop the documentary and find her own style was exciting. “The more she got into it, the more she fell in love with it.
” “We both love telling people’s stories, and giving others a voice when they don’t have one,” he continues. “That’s where a lot of our bond comes from.” ADVERTISEMENT Gold says Kotrba’s other-focused approach is another attractive feature of her friend.
“It’s never about where she’s gone or what she’s done. She talks more about the people she worked with, and the smiles on their faces.” She has no doubt that Kotrba is headed for success.
“She’s going to do stuff, and do it with heart and passion and love,” Gold says, noting that Kotrba’s Catholic faith “backs up everything she does.” “Out of every person I’ve met, she lives most to be in the world, but not of the world,” Gold says. “She inspires me every day to get involved in the things around me.
It’s so beautiful.” As for what’s next specifically, Kotrba says she wants to return to Peru and dive in even deeper. “Peru brought up a ton of questions, and I need to go back and talk to the people more, because I feel like some things were left unanswered.
” Kotrba says seeing other people succeed brings her joy. “Like my dancers—they were so incredible this last year. We didn’t even win many competitions but seeing them grow over these past months has been so powerful.
” This summer, she’s had a chance to see that even more through working as a camp counselor for Trinity Youth Camp in northern North Dakota. The camp theme this year came from Psalm 139:14: “I praise you, Lord, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; I know them very well.
” Ruminating on that theme has given her direction for her future, says Kotrba, who isn’t one to just talk about doing something, but jumping in, with vigor. “God created us to be free, brave, authentic,” she adds, “and disruptive—but in a good way!” View her work, “Come and See,” here: https://youtu.be/uY8ZFU6pIlo?si=YpiawY0n9lm9pll_ ADVERTISEMENT.
