Clips
A collection of my work as published around the Web:
Features at the Poynter Institute
902-YOHO: Finding happiness on the Treasure Seeker
I asked a woman on my beat if there was anything interesting going on around her. Her face lit up.
“I live across the street from a pirate!”
It turned out that her neighbor was Tripp Hixon, who had joined his father in quitting their jobs and opening a daily pirate ship cruise. I spent two days with the Hixons, interviewing them and going along on their cruises. This story is the result.
A sun-soaked livelihood sails away
My teammates and I wandered up to a boatyard on our beat and struck up a conversation with the general manager. Within minutes, he had already told us that the yard was struggling to survive against the rising property taxes and aggressive condo developers. I decided to profile life on a boatyard and how its workers were handling its imminent demise.
Hard news on deadline
Champaign City Council votes down smoking ban
While I was covering Champaign city government, the most divisive issue in the city was a proposed smoking ban that would never die. This story was one of many I wrote about the issue, but it was easily the most exciting. This was the first time the ban came for a full vote in front of the city council, and it would ultimately get voted down in two different forms that night. The meeting ran until 11 p.m., which left me staring at my 11:30 deadline. I was able to get the story done and in the paper the next morning.
Johnson defeats Gill in race for U.S. House seat
This was my first election night as a reporter, and still one of my favorite articles. We were pretty sure Tim Johnson would defeat David Gill, so the initial plan was for another reporter to wrap up the election while I followed Gill and wrote a sort of “in the face of defeat” feature story. But when our Johnson reporter never found her man — leaving us with just a few quotes nabbed over the phone — I was told to write the full story myself before deadline.
Sports
Former Illini tennis player serves up comedy
Not long after I started on the men’s tennis beat, one of the players casually mentioned a former player that had started doing stand-up comedy. I was so excited I pitched the story the same day.
Michael Kosta’s story was a bit of a struggle because he had moved to Michigan for his comedy and I was stuck in class in Illinois. We talked on the phone about 10 times, and I called most of his former teammates and coaches to corroborate and flesh out the scenes I described. I spent about two weeks on the project in all, and was very pleased with the result.
In the months after the story was published, both Tennis Magazine and the local daily paper ran similar stories on Kosta.
Seniors secure final home-court win
This is one of the many game stories I wrote while covering the Illinois men’s basketball and tennis teams in 2006-2007. It was the last home game for the departing seniors, giving the night an emotional air. After the game and press conference, I had about a half-hour to file the story.
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