Journalism wasn't my first career choice.
I had aspirations to be an athlete, but grew up before Title IX gave girls access to the field.
I dreamed of being an airline pilot or an astronaut, but was hampered by gender.
I was drawn to the spatial challenges of architecture, but in my rural Wisconsin school district in the 1960s, girls couldn't take shop class so didn't learn drafting.
Along the way, I fell hard in love with a farmer's son, but he needed to settle down and I needed to roam. (His wife and daughters are lovely. We remain good friends.)
So I joined the high school newspaper staff, grabbed a notebook and the keys to the school car, and ...
It turned out OK.
I spent 30-some years as a reporter and editor for newspapers in the Upper Midwest and Pacific Northwest. I have filed stories from all seven continents, including Antarctica. I wrote about beauty pageants and popes, AIDS and the Olympics, dogsled expeditions and refugee camps, workplace and welfare and war — not to mention countless planning commission and sewer board meetings. I came of age in the modern women’s movement, covered some of its crucible events and benefited from the battles fought on behalf of women everywhere. (Battles that are far from done or won.)
Thanks to the courage of two men who faced prejudice with love, and to the sharp-eyed and soulful photography of Jean Pieri at the St. Paul Pioneer Press, I won the 1988 Pulitzer Prize in feature writing for "AIDS in the Heartland," an intimate series following a gay farm couple from diagnosis to death.
Also in partnership with Jean Pieri, I was a finalist for the 1986 Pulitzer Prize in international reporting for "Trail of Tears," our on-the-ground coverage of the famine in sub-Saharan Africa. My coverage of Greco-Roman wrestling at the 1988 Olympics won the Associated Press Sports Editors’ national award for deadline reporting -- to the chagrin of some in the boys' club of sports journalism. As an editor, I have been fortunate to guide several award-winning projects, including winners of ASNE Best Newspaper Writing, Ernie Pyle Human Interest Writing and national business, health, social issues and investigative prizes. My students' projects regularly win Hearst Awards, considered the Pulitzer Prize of college journalism.
I now hold the Knight Chair in Editing at the Missouri School of Journalism and am a faculty fellow at the Poynter Institute. I coach reporters, writers and editors around the world, where access to stories eases hours spent in the cramp of airplanes. I remain loyal to the Green Bay Packers, hike when I can along Lake Superior and in the high Cascades, believe in the healing powers of gardening and listening, and am always open to a good book.
