“Countdown to Kitty
Hawk” Writing Contest Judges
EAA’s “Countdown to Kitty Hawk” Writing Contest will award cash prizes and trophies to professional journalists for the best articles published about the Wright brothers’ first ever powered flight nearly 100 years ago, how they achieved it, and why their achievements were so important. To decide the winners, EAA chose the following panel of five judges from the academic and journalistic areas:
JEFFREY ALAN JOHN
Jeffrey Alan John is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio. He teaches courses in research writing, news and feature writing, editing for print media, communication graphics and photographic communication. For the last 15 years he has been faculty advisor to the award-winning WSU newspaper, The Guardian. A former newspaper writer, magazine editor and public relations writer, John continues to write on a freelance basis. He is a PhD graduate of Ohio University and currently lives in Bellbrook, Ohio, with his wife, Karin Avila-John and their 10-year-old triplet sons.
Larry Lain is Professor
of Journalism at the University of Dayton, where he has taught since 1976.
Lain holds a B.S. degree from Indiana State University, an M.A.E. from
Ball State University, and a PhD in mass communication from Ohio State
University. He is the author of six travel books (three on London and one
each on Paris, New York City and Washington, D.C.) and three books on
journalism education. Lain has written for newspapers in Indiana and
worked as a copy editor for the Dayton Daily News. He and wife
Barbara have three grown sons and two young grandsons.
CHRIS ROUSH
Chris Roush is an
Assistant Professor at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at
the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he specializes in
teaching business reporting. He previously taught business reporting
classes at the University of Richmond and at Washington & Lee
University. Roush is a former editor-in-chief of SNL Financial LC in
Charlottesville, Virginia, where he oversaw content for monthly magazines
such as Thrift Investor and Insurance Investor, and also
worked as a reporter for Bloomberg News, Atlanta Journal-Constitution,
BusinessWeek Magazine, Tampa Tribune, Sarasota Herald-Tribune and St.
Petersburg Times. He was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 1993 by the
Tribune in the beat reporting category and is the author of the book “Inside
Home Depot: How One Company Revolutionized An Industry Through The
Relentless Pursuit of Growth” published by McGraw-Hill in 1999.
Roush received his bachelor’s degree from Auburn University and a
master’s degree from the University of Florida.
SCOTT SPANGLER
EAA Editor-in-Chief Scott
M. Spangler is a graduate of the University of Missouri School of
Journalism who has been pursuing his craft for a quarter century, starting
with a six-year stint in the United States Navy. For seven years, he
taught journalism at Missouri Military Academy, a college prep school for
boys, before accepting the position as founding editor of Flight
Training magazine in 1989. He has written for a diverse number of
publications, from a financial newsletter to the Smithsonian’s Air
& Space magazine. An EAA member since 1978, he assumed his current
position as EAA’s Editor-in-Chief in 1999.
LANE WALLACE
Lane Wallace is a regular columnist and West Coast Editor of FLYING magazine, currently based in Santa Rosa, California. She learned to fly in 1985 after being inspired by a biplane flying overhead, and her love affair with airplanes continues to this day. She owned a 1946 Cessna 120 for seven years and now owns a 1977 Grumman Cheetah. Ms. Wallace has also written four books for NASA on the agency’s efforts and accomplishments in aeronautics and space research. Her 1994 book Airborne Trailblazer won a Washington EdPress Silver Award for Excellence in Print. She is also the author of Wild Blue Wonders, a book for young people about flying and designing airplanes, which was published by EAA in 2001. She also wrote and co-produced a three-part documentary series on the human adventure of flight research that aired on The Learning Channel. Her work has earned her numerous citations and awards. Ms. Wallace graduated with honors from Brown University in 1983, with a degree in Semiotics. Prior to her association with FLYING magazine, she wrote for AOPA Pilot, Flight International, and several other aviation publications.
