On March 30, a Bornean orangutan was born at Zoo Atlanta. I wrote a small brief about the new arrival for an endangered species, then updated it a few days later when zoo officials said he’d been removed from his mother for hand-rearing. When I asked a few weeks later how the little fellow was doing, I heard these words: “The nurses from Children’s Healthcare are so great…” The…what?
Really: nurses from Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta had stepped in to hold the infant orangutan, just as his mother would.
Read the story: Zoo Atlanta orangutan survives with human care
See the photos by AJC photographer Vino Wong: Baby orangutan born at Zoo Atlanta
For decades, the William Weinman Mineral Museum in Cartersville, Ga., seemed more like a sign on the highway than a place to stop and learn. Field trips were the main clientele at the 9,000-square foot museum. But a private donation and months of construction recreated it as Tellus: Northwest Georgia Science Museum, a 120,000-square foot, hands-on educational center — one that opened just in time to greet the worst of the recession. My profile of the museum and its first year ran on Page One of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Sept. 12, 2009.
Read the story: New Tellus science museum now a Smithsonian Affiliate
See more photos from the museum: What’s on display at Tellus
On a beautiful October night, Atlanta’s Castleberry Hill neighborhood transformed into a living art project. There were installations on sidewalks, choreographed dances in the street, works projected on walls, impromptu parades, performances staged on the beds of trucks. On my blog, Inside Access, I’m not an art critic, but I am a judge of experiences. ‘Le Flash’ was like none I’d had before.
See the blog post and photos: 5 things to love about ‘Le Flash’ in Castleberry Hill
In the days before Thanksgiving in 2008, I’d read stories about how to raise a heritage turkey or cook a heritage turkey, but nothing that explained why or who does it. Liz and Tim Young answered my questions with 76 acres in Elberton, Ga., birds that cost $4.75 per pound and a waiting list they cut off at 100. It was their business, but also their passion. They were happy to raise the birds, and to kill them, because they felt they were doing it the humane way. My story and photos ran on Page One of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Nov. 26, 2008.
Read the story: A slice of heritage for Thanksgiving
See the photos: Elberton’s heritage turkey farm
On my first day at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, my editor asked: “How would you feel about diving into a vat of grits?” It’s an annual competition at the National Grits Festival, in Warwick, Ga., the state’s Grits Capital. Maybe he should have asked if I’d dive into a vat of grits, shoot it, write it and appear in a video about it, but the answer would have been stayed the same. I wrote the story, edited the photos and transmitted them on the (damp, grainy) ride home. The story published in print on April 12, 2008 and the video just after.
Read the story: “How to jump in the grit pit”
See the video: “Reporter gets owned, beat up by grits“
I embedded with the Carlisle, Ky.-based National Guard B Battery, 2nd Battalion, 138th Field Artillery in late 2007 to report, photograph and blog about their experiences in Iraq. They were based at Camp Taji, about 20 miles north of Baghdad, but as a convoy unit, they were on the road most of the time. A policy change contradicted everything they’d learned about how to stay safe while traveling, and how to interact with Iraqis. This story, published by the McClatchy Baghdad bureau on Dec. 21, 2007, explained the policy change and how it affected military members.
Read the full story and see photos here: U.S. Convoys Struggle to Adjust to Policy Change
Read another story from the embed: Holidays bring avalanche of mail for troops
